A mission statement is a statement detailing the points that make your business unique. In the simplest terms, a solid mission statement attracts customers by explaining the business’ intended accomplishments. Another important element is to inspire employees or, more precisely, their actions leading toward the desired business goal/mission.
A mission statement is set in the present tense and describes your business purpose and its primary goals and objectives. As such, it needs to be concise, clearly composed, and inspirational to fully inspire company growth. When done right, a mission statement can easily explain your business purpose both to customers and employees.
To be able to draft such a powerful mission statement, you should focus on the following elements:
- Value — which are the values of your business (for employees and audiences alike)?
- Credibility — your mission statement needs to be credible to be able to mobilize employees and audiences
- Ingenuity — what sets your business apart from other similar businesses in the industry and why should prospective hires choose your business over the competition?
- Relevance — link your mission statement to your business
How to Create an Efficient Mission Statement
First of all, mission statements weren’t born equal, similar to people. Different businesses may approach their mission statement in a different way, and it’s only natural to link to relevant and credible points that make them stand out from competitors.
However, there are some common points of interest that for the prerequisite for creating a new mission statement, as follows:
- Conciseness — explain your business mission using a couple of sentences
- Memorability — in order for it to stand out, a mission statement must be memorable. This means that it should be tied to your business specifically. Do not beat around the bush or generalize.
- Keep it short — a mission statement should be as short as possible but don’t limit it. Make it as long as it needs to be to include your business’ selling point, no more and no less.
- Keep your long-term goals in mind — a mission statement should be evergreen. You don’t want to write and write it every couple of months. Rather, focus on your long-term mission.
- Adjustments are fine when a change takes place — don’t confuse the previous point with necessary adjustments to your mission statement. Markets and trends change, so if the day comes when your mission statement doesn’t represent your company anymore, rewrite it.
- Ask for employee feedback — since mission statements target employees as well as customers, it’s only natural to ask employees for feedback. Heed their concerns and apply changes where necessary.
Since the digital transformation became the norm, many changes have emerged. Mission statements are no exception, meaning they need to be adjusted to include new points of interest and new vision and mission.
Representing Your Organization in a Mission Statement
Here are some handy points to include in a new mission statement, described in brief.
Describe Your Scope of Operations and Company Purpose
Describe the products/services your business provides. It’s as simple as that. No need to complicate things or use fancy words — make it clear for audiences and employees what to expect from your business!
Describe How Your Organization Provides Products & Services
This is a bit more complex part but it needs to be addressed nevertheless. Basically, you should describe how your business goes about its operations. Focus on core values.
E.g., instead of merely listing the purpose of your company, you should focus on the processes of interest that make the magic happen.
An example of a business purpose would be selling shoes online. A core value to expand on it would be exceptional customer service or ensuring high product quality.
How to Best Deploy Your Mission Statement
Once your new mission statement is ready, it’s time to put it to work but how exactly do you do that?
First of all, you should decide which operations to empower by it. Business planning aside, the focus of a mission statement should be, as mentioned above, on employees and target audiences — in short, on people interacting with your business.
For starters, make your mission statement clearly visible on your business’ website. Some firms also use it in advertising but this is totally optional.
For best results, however, you should couple your mission statement with your business vision statement.
Don’t get discouraged here. A vision statement is not nearly as demanding as a mission statement. For one thing, it only contains a sentence or a short paragraph. Typically, vision statements describe company goals in simplest terms; e.g. “my business is trying to build this or that.”
Instead of a conclusion, we’ll leave you with some stellar examples of the finest mission statements. Read on!
“To inspire humanity — both in the air and on the ground.” (JetBlue)
“To be a company that inspires and fulfils your curiosity.” (Sony)
“Utilize the power of Moore’s Law to bring smart, connected devices to every person on earth.” (Intel)
“To improve customers’ financial lives so profoundly, they couldn’t imagine going back to the old way.” (Intuit)
“To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” (Starbucks)
“To move the web forward and give web designers and developers the best tools and services in the world.” (Adobe)
