Ajay Pattani

Founder and CEO PERFECT S EARCH MEDIA

“We found that the best time to brainstorm core values was during our weekly company meetings. We’d split up into small groups, and each would list the qualities that they believed we embodied. Once we had each team’s list, we noticed overlap and patterns—which was reassuring. Our team decided that five was a reasonable number that’s easy to remember, while thorough enough to cover all the bases. Then we narrowed the full list, chose the most important values, and workshopped them into concise statements.” Pattani founded his Chicagobased digital marketing agency in 2010. It made the Inc. 5000 in 2017 and Inc.’s Best Workplaces list the following year.