When’s the last time someone asked you “what’s your mission statement?”
However, when asked “what do you do?” you’re ready with a minute or less elevator pitch, or a snappy logo and business name that says it all. And, for all others there’s your LinkedIn bio and your website.
Why would you need a mission statement?
You’ve already spent an inordinate about of time finding your passion, finding your specialty niche and profiling your target audience and ideal client.
After all, you’re not a corporation like Starbucks needing to promote your brand worldwide. At least, not at the moment.
You can love Starbucks coffee, without knowing their mission statement and still benefit.
Just in case you’re curious here’s their updated mission statement –
“Our mission: to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”
Most mission statements are feel good expressions of self promotion
Mission statement critics point out their qualities of ambiguity, exaggeration, generalization and buzz words. Often, they’re one huge paragraph, include every imaginable attribute and appear to be socially responsible yet vague.
Really, Starbucks!
How many of your cups of your coffee do I need to have my human spirit inspired and nurtured?
Great mission statements tell the essence of a story
Within this story there should be these elements:
- The name of your business
- The purpose of your business
- Who benefits and possibly how they benefit
- What distinguishes your business from competitors
- Wording that relays values and/or emotional or memorable connections
Rewrite: Starbucks is dedicated to sending only our own highly trained traders around the world to source the very best coffee beans in order to insure your coffee is always brewed to be the most delicious and satisfying cup of coffee ever.
This is my version, and you can play around with it and come up with something that appeals to you. The idea is to start thinking of ways a mission statement can be fresh and exciting.
Why have a great mission statement?
While a mission statement defines our business, we often fall into the trap of thinking it’s only for those who want a quick overview of what our business is all about.
Yes, it does serve that purpose, but it’s even more meaningful to us the business entrepreneur.
Our mission statement is what we measure ourselves and our business against.
It’s the means to:
- guiding us in goal planning
- staying focused and tracking our progress
- maintaining the clarity of our purpose
- reminding us of our commitments
- motivating us forward
- verifying that decisions are in alignment
- alerting us when we’re straying from our core values
It doesn’t mean a mission statement is carved in stone. You’re allowed to change it at any point as your business evolves to better serve clients or customers.
If on the other hand, you decide to take your business in a new direction, take the time to modify or craft a new mission statement.
After all, it’s your business mission should you choose to accept it.
What does your mission statement say about you and your business?
Let’s talk about it in the comments below.
Image: Pixabay, 472657
Sources:
http://articles.bplans.co.uk/writing-a-business-plan/mission-statement/367
https://karmastore.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/the-problem-with-mission-statements-and-company-writing/
http://www.smallfuel.com/blog/entry/mission-statements-dont-work-get-something-that-does/
http://www.sitepoint.com/personal-mission-statement/
http://www.idealist.org/info/Nonprofits/Gov1
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You are so right. Having a mission statement helps to provide our vision and purpose and makes us feel better, hopefully, about what our business is about. I know mine is to help other biz owners and doing that makes ME feel better about my biz. 😉
Great article summoning up what a mission statement should be. I don’t have one for my business as I wasn’t quite sure how to put one together. Thanks for making it simple! I’ll get to work on this.
Interesting read, as although I am familiar with mission statements, I do not currently have one. My business is “me”, so it will include all the values I stand for and bring to others through my writing and my health and nutrition team. Would you suggest having my name in this mission statement, as I don’t have a separate business name? Thanks for the prompts and I’ll be intuiting my mission statement in the near future. Stay tuned…
Mission statements were origianlly corporate features that provided a business description for investors, bankers and registering a business for legal reasons. I think that the online community adopted it to make businesses more credible even though a lot of internet markerters don’t register their businesses as LLCs. Eventually there will be legislation for collecting sales tax on products and services depending on your state, and the paperwork requires some form of business description of function and product/services. That’s the business side of it. As I said in the post, the mission statement is also a self reference check. It can be as short as one sentence or even be a tag line. Anyone who offers services or products for sale then comes under consumer laws. And, that’s when a website needs to have a legal privacy statement, a legal statement and a Terms and Conditions statement. The mission statement just adds to your business credibility. Hope this clarifies things for you.
I always have a hard time giving snappy, concise, interesting summaries of things. However, I realize how important this is. I need to be able to articulate not only my mission as a writer, but I need to be able to give the 20 second synopsis of my novel. I DO NOT want to meet an editor or literary agent on an elevator or book fair and bumble around while others sound witty. I will be looking at this article again, and giving this a lot of thought. I need to be able to verbalize my book’s “True North.”
Also, loved your question to Starbucks: How many of your cups of your coffee do I need to have my human spirit inspired and nurtured?
Hopefully, I can do better than Starbuck’s.
Totally sympatize Joan, putting things into anything concise is a challenge. But, today everyone wants to get to the point faster.
By the way, I don’t drink Starbucks coffee. Let that be our secret.
My first thought was what- I also need a mission statement! And then thought will I have to memorize it. Interesting, we wrote one recently & I intend to see if it aligns with the points you suggested we include.
It’s always a good idea to re-check your mission statement. Things change and sometimes you’ve added something new to what you offer. Love your site by the way, and have bookmarked it to read later. I especially like the idea of mentioning the spiritual and health aspects.
Great info. My mission statement is general right now but am in the process of reworking it.
I assist and inspire homeowners, parents, and small business owners organize their lives, homes, and offices.
Any suggestions?
Sabrina, from you statement you are serving three different goups, each with their own specific needs. Now, you could focus on just one group such as small businesses and promote your business that way. If you want to help all three groups then you need to find their common themes. Is is storage, scheduling, letting go of stuff? “I’m Sabrina, your master organizer. I’m here to help you reduce the hassels of the daily suff with simple strategies for storing what youy need so that you can always find it, keeping track of events so that you are never late to one again, and letting go of things that no longer serve you, your family or your business. The idea here is to make an emotional connection to your potential clients. Hope this helps.
This is what I currently have on my website: Mission: “To empower dreams in my own life so I can help you empower yours. To inspire you to go out in the world and make a difference in the lives you touch – because when you feel empowered you naturally inspire others. Isn’t that what it’s really all about? ”
Perhaps I can take some of your tips a make a little better. Thanks!!
You’ve dedicated yourself to a very empowering mission. Maybe you can find a way to be more specific as to how you bring about this inspiration.
This is incredibly helpful for me, Joyce! Especially the elements it should contain. I actually have a mission statement, which includes most but not all of these. And it doesn’t include my business name! LOL. Thank you. Gonna spend some time redoing it!
Sometimes, all it takes is a few tweaks.
Nice article. It is important to refine or completely change your mission statement as you change your business direction. Have you let Starbucks know that you have written an improved one for theM?
After putting so much effort into writing a mission statement, we think it can cover everrything we do and will ever do. So, it’s a good idea to check in and see if we still have the same business. Their missions statement makes them feel good, why spoil it for them? Obviously it’s not a statement for the rest of us. We’ll just have to make do with a cup of their coffee.