Natural Entrepreneur: Writing your mission statement

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Strategy

Visualize Whirled Peas
(if you're in the soup business)

Writing your mission statement

If you’ve ever seen the bumper sticker, “Visualize Whirled Peas,” I am certain that you, like many, cannot avoid an image popping into your head of little green peas being stirred in a container. While this bumper sticker makes fun of the original one, “Visualize World Peace”, popularized during the 1960’s, the central lesson holds true today -- if you want big things to happen, it helps to visualize the results in advance.

Put another way, if you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably never get there.

Around the same time the “Visualize” bumper stickers came onto the scene, the idea that every venture needed a Mission Statement was also on the rise.

A mission statement provides a point of light, a beacon that determines the trajectory for your business venture. Day-to-day you are pulled in many directions. Your mission statement is there to influence all decisions and help in setting priorities. Ever present, it serves to define the tone of conversations and bound the criteria for tough decisions.

Mission statements are a requirement in a written business plan. For investors and financiers, the statement provides the underlying purpose of your venture, setting the foundations for your business plan which proceeds to define the opportunities for success, and the plan of execution. Disclosing your mission statement to customers helps in explaining what you stand for. And finally, sharing the company’s mission with your employees is an important step in getting everyone in the company on the same page regarding the business purpose.

Not the least important, having a written mission statement is also essential to you, the business owner. Writing your mission is an exercise that forces you to clarify your long-range vision and articulate what it is that is driving your spirit. The mission statement ultimately characterizes what is important to you and why you are creating the business in the first place.

How to write a mission statement

Writing a mission statement is not an easy task. It requires you to be general, yet concise about your business. And the statement must embody what you expect the company to become – which may be much broader and aspiring than your business function and focus today.

To begin, step outside your day to day routine, and ask yourself, Why you are doing this? How will those who use your product or service really benefit? In doing so, try to identify your company’s purpose in life. This is meant to be a broad statement, and does not need to be product-specific.

Customer satisfaction is almost always a part of a mission statement. So much so, it’s almost trite to mention. Then again, the lifeblood of every business is the customer - forget this and loose everything.

Words can make a world of difference. For example, does a restaurant “serve good food to people”, or rather, “serve people good food”? Again, the mission includes a customer focus. But even more significant, the restaurateurs in this example should see themselves selling a total experience, from the atmosphere, to the service, to the product, to the brand. The mission statement should reflect this.

Thus, the mission statement anticipates the ultimate benefits of your business, not necessarily the physical objects. This may include benefits to your customers, to your investors, and to the community at large.

Finally, don’t confuse your mission statement with more specific goals and objectives (which will be covered in a future article). Objectives are specific, time limited, and measurable. Mission is abstract and almost philosophical.

What now?

My advice is to take the time, now, to puzzle over your mission. Work on each word and craft it carefully. Share your thoughts with colleagues, employees, and customers. Spend bits of time over a period of a few days on it. Get it so it sounds and feels right.

Then, stuff it into a drawer and get on with your day-to-day business! (Or, post it on your web site). Don’t quite forget about it, but it’s certainly not “brass tacks”. Then every once in a while (whether measured in weeks, or months, but not years), take it out of the drawer, reflect on your words, compare them to your present situation, and consider: Do I need to adjust my present direction? Or, Should I recalibrate my mission statement?

-- by Jonathan Linowes
June 2, 2004

Example Mission Statements

IBM

At IBM, we strive to lead in the invention, development and manufacture of the industry's most advanced information technologies, including computer systems, software, storage systems and microelectronics. We translate these advanced technologies into value for our customers through our professional solutions, services and consulting businesses worldwide.

Preamble to the US Constitution

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek:

Space, the Final Frontier… These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

The New Hampshire Lottery

The mission of the New Hampshire Sweepstakes Commission is to maximize revenues for aid to public education by providing secure and entertaining gaming products to its players. The commission's dedicated staff recognizes that New Hampshire was the first state to offer a lottery in modern times and that the lottery shall continue to be an industry leader by striving to exceed minimum industry standards and goals established for accounting, security, marketing and game design.

Mt. Washington Valley Economic Council

To support existing business, to foster the formation of new business and to attract businesses to relocate to the area, with a commitment to help them diversify, prosper and enhance their sustainability while preserving the regions natural beauty.

Natural Entrepreneur.com

Our own mission statement can be found here.

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