If you want to scale your business, you need to get your culture right. Without a shared and common understanding of mission, values, and beliefs, you’re going nowhere. Everyone needs to be rowing in the same direction. In a time where many new employees are either fully remote or hybrid, this has never been more critical. At GALE, we had values before we had a website. They’re baked into our hiring methods, collaborative efforts, daily workflows, and annual performance review process. We’ve tripled in size since the start of the pandemic. A lot of that growth was driven by our audience-first and integrated approach, having the right capabilities at the right time, but marketing is a people business. We would not have gotten here without a clear idea of who we were and what we stood for. What supercharged our growth is having values ingrained in our ways of thinking and working.

As you think about scaling, don’t forget the emotional part of the equation. Make sure that it’s not just words in a deck that people read once and forget. Codify your culture and measure everyone against it. Keep it simple, memorable, and something your people will be inspired by and proud of sharing. Look at most thriving businesses today and you’ll be sure to find a strong and visible culture.