“We don’t and can’t compete on breadth with Comcast, Sky, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, or Google. For us to be hugely successful, we have to be a focused passion brand. Starbucks, not 7-Eleven. Southwest, not United. HBO, not Dish.”

That is what Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, said in an 11-page memo to employees and investors—setting Netflix on a journey to move on from being limited to content distribution to becoming a leading producer of content that has won Emmys and Oscars.

What can small businesses learn from this move? The importance of sticking to the values ascribed by the business when engaging in transformation initiatives.

Today, let’s discuss the importance of not becoming a follower when it comes to leading business transformation initiatives, and how small business advisors can contribute to this effort. We will also talk about so-called “business gurus” who are advising small businesses in this day and age, and why relying on them may not be the best idea.

The importance of core values in business transformation

Transformation efforts are a common occurrence for businesses across the board in this day and age, especially with technology adoption becoming commonplace. However, in this process, understanding and maintaining alignment with the business’s core values is extremely important.

First of all, it helps businesses with decision-making by providing clarity. It helps the decision-makers make strategically sound decisions that align with the organization’s mission. When faced with choices during the transformation process, it is important to refer back to these values for optimal outcomes.

Values also play a major role in shaping company culture, which is a crucial aspect of employee engagement and commitment. According to research by Harvard Business Review, an engaged workforce can increase profitability by 21%. So, keeping values in mind when engaging in transformation is clearly important if the business hopes to continue reaping its benefits.

Adherence to values also helps establish a strong sense of trust and credibility across the business’s stakeholders. This includes both internal stakeholders like employees and partners and external stakeholders like customers. Ethics and integrity also play a key role here. As a key aspect of any small business’s values, these concepts are extremely important to keep in mind when engaging in transformation initiatives, as it is something that customers value heavily. In fact, 70% of customer attitudes toward a brand are shaped by the brand’s business ethics behavior.

However, an important aspect of business transformation that especially small businesses should keep in mind is not to be an imposter. What this means is that small businesses should not try to emulate the success of other businesses’ transformation initiatives by following the exact path that they took.

The business landscape and dynamic and the challenges and opportunities that each business faces differ vastly from business to business, industry to industry. If small businesses hope to see success in their transformation initiatives, they must devise and implement tailored transformation plans that address the specific needs of the business.

For example, let’s say a small design agency that maintains the core values of efficiency without compromise, transparency, collaboration, and social uplifting is undertaking a transformation initiative. They can implement these values across their transformation effort with strategies like recognizing employees each month, establishing new recruitment criteria aligned with core values, and incorporating values into the company culture through DEI initiatives. By aligning their transformation efforts with core values, the business will be able to see better employee and customer engagement, higher profitability, and improved growth.

The role of small business advisors in transformation

Now, let’s talk about small business advisors and their role in business transformation. They can offer valuable insights on creating transformation strategies that combine commercial objectives with value alignment, creating an environment where businesses can derive multi-faceted benefits from their efforts.

Here’s how they contribute:

1. Strategic Planning

Small business advisors will have extensive meetings and strategy discussions with the small business owners to understand and establish feasible long-term goals and create actionable strategies to achieve them. They will also analyze internal and external data, industry trends, and the competition to develop transformation plans that align with the organization’s vision and mission.

2. Problem-Solving

When running a small business, challenges are inevitable. Advisors can use their extensive knowledge and experience to analyze challenges, identify root causes, and create effective solutions to address them. They can help businesses navigate the challenges that may come with transformation efforts—whether it’s decreasing sales, operational inefficiencies, or team productivity issues to ultimately see success.

3. Financial Management

Advisors can also contribute massively to the financial health of a small business—which is particularly helpful as small businesses most likely will not have the financial resources or capabilities of a larger organization. According to a QuickBooks report, advisors reduce expenses, increase revenue, and improve cash flow. Their expertise can help small businesses ensure financial stability during transformation initiatives.

4. Navigating Complexities

Navigating the tumultuous business landscape is tricky for small businesses in the best of days, and this complexity will only be exacerbated when they are undergoing transformation. Advisors can leverage their experience to anticipate trends, identify growth opportunities, and mitigate risks—guiding the decisions taken by the business leaders towards success.

When considering the services of a small business advisor, it’s important to be aware of who can offer real value as well. There are plenty of “business gurus” who try to take advantage of the limited knowledge small business owners may have on advisory services. While some of the information they offer can certainly be insightful, ultimately, their services won’t drive long-term benefits. Here’s why:

• They won’t offer tailored solutions: A successful transformation effort is wholly reliant on how sound the strategy is. If the strategy fails to take the business’s specific situation into account, the transformation won’t have the outcomes the business expects at best; or simply fail at worst. These “gurus” won’t offer tailored solutions—which means your transformation efforts will never create the value it could.
• They will most likely overload the business with information: More often than not, they will provide an extensive amount of information that from the surface, might seem of high value. However, this won’t deliver many results as most of the information will include irrelevant or peripheral offerings that don’t align with the core objectives of the transformation effort.

So, while the backing of an advisor can drastically improve the transformation efforts of a small business, it’s important to keep in mind that choosing a reliable advisor is also highly important.

Align your business transformation efforts with core values and experience enduring success

So, now you know the importance of keeping true to your core values when undertaking transformation efforts in your business and the contribution a small business advisor can make towards it.

Seek professional business advisors to guide your transformation efforts and reap the benefits of value-aligned transformation.