What is the purpose of your business? How are you building loyalty among your customer base? What sets you apart from your competition? Answer those questions with a Mission Statement!
An often overlooked part of starting a business is crafting a Mission Statement. It doesn’t have to take long, or be long, but a clear and concise Mission Statement can build benefits for your company, employees, and customers. When you write one out, it can help focus your business. Using a Mission Statement has the potential to be framework that guides your business strategies. Sharing it is a great way to build your brand’s image in people’s minds.
So what exactly is a Mission Statement? Good ‘ol Google defines it as a “formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual. Wikipedia expands on that idea with “…its reason for existing; a written declaration of an organization’s core purpose and focus that normally remains unchanged over time.”
Don’t get it confused with a Vision Statement. A companies vision is more abstract, speaking to the goals and potentials you hope to reach. The Mission should show how that vision will come to pass.
WRITING A MISSION STATEMENT
When writing one, you need to define three specific things:
1. Define what you do.
- Use words specific to your niche.
- Avoid generic ideas, it will lose impact and become forgettable.
- What do you specifically do to set yourself apart from competitors?
2. Define your customers
- Who are you trying to reach?
- What do your services provide for?
- Do they fall under any common demographics?
- How would you describe your customer base?
3. Define your values.
- Do you focus on teamwork, or individualism?
- Between the two, do you place more importance on product quality or competitive pricing?
- What qualities do you want your company to reflect?
Once you’ve answered questions like these, it’s time to put them all together. Some companies like a long, specific sentence for their statement. Others break the ideas they want to include into three or four sentences, like one strong paragraph. It’s up to you how you would like to structure it.
EXAMPLES
McDonalds
McDonald’s brand mission is to be our customers’ favorite place and way to eat and drink. Our worldwide operations are aligned around a global strategy called the Plan to Win, which center on an exceptional customer experience – People, Products, Place, Price and Promotion.
Chipotle
Food with integrity is our commitment to finding the very best ingredients raised with respect for the animals, the environment and the farmers.
Trader Joe’s
The mission of Trader Joe’s is to give our customers the best food and beverage values that they can find anywhere and to provide them with the information required to make informed buying decisions. We provide these with a dedication to the highest quality of customer satisfaction delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, fun, individual pride, and company spirit.
IKEA
At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.
Make sure you’re using a Mission Statement to define how your business will succeed. Be specific, avoid abstract terms, and target what makes you special. Show off what you do, who your customers are, and the values your business embodies. Combine it with an awesome logo design, and your company will be more memorable to your customers.
What does your Mission Statement say about YOU! Share with us what you’ve come up with!
Woman writing image provided by graur razvan ionut / freedigitalphotos.net