Moving on to the next step in your business foundation, your mission statement asks the fundamental question, why do I exist? Sometimes business owners have a hard time incorporating the necessary ingredients to make their mission statement great.
The first part I want tackle is the basic content of your mission. One Page Business Plan gives the following questions as possible questions to answer in putting this together:
• Describe the WHY customers will buy from you
• Define your product or service clearly
• Define your ideal customer
• What benefits do you offer the customer?
• What makes your product or service different from the competition?
These are all points that you can make in your mission statement but you don’t have to incorporate all of these points. I like to start a mission with what I do and then talk about why or how I do it. For instance: I coach/consult Small Business (0-10 million in annual revenue) to….(explain the why or how or even both).
If your business has a specific technology advantage or some other competitive advantage, then mention that for sure.
Once I know content and basic outline then I start crafting the mission statement through drafting, drafting and more drafting. My goal is to whittle it down to 1-2 sentences. You will hear some suggest that you can make your mission a paragraph or even a page. The reason I don’t like them to be long is because I want my mission statement to become a mantra for my organization and for myself.
It’s much easier to tell someone with clarity, what you do and why, when you are out networking at an event if you mission is 1-2 sentences. I also want my employees to be able to recite this with ease as well as my clients. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.
The last piece to your mission is to take time to review your mission every so often. As I stated yesterday regarding vision statements, if your mission is out of date or is not looked at, it becomes an ineffective tool. Make sure you are reviewing regularly and your mission can be a strong brick in your business foundation.
Any more points out there on what you feel are musts for a mission statement?