New business owners need to have a strong mission statement. This short declaration of purpose lets customers and investors know what you do and why you do it. Ideally your mission statement will be short and to the point, and can be used on business flyers, door hangers and other promotional material. If you don't already have a mission statement, a few hours of work will help you come up with a paragraph that will impress investors and draw in customers. Even if you've already come up with one, these tips can help you look over your statement and make sure it's the best it can be.
A Mission Statement's Purpose
The first step toward coming up with a mission statement is understanding what you want yours to do. Generally speaking, your mission statement should explain what your company provides. You'll want to tailor what information you include based on the audience you're most interested in. If you're mainly looking to draw in investors, your statement should say how you're going to bring in a profit. If you're speaking to customers, it should explain what they'll get out of using your product or service. A perfect mission statement would actually do both of these at once. Even if you're mainly focused on one group at this point in your company's life, it's worth considering both viewpoints. Mission statements shouldn't change often, since you're effectively declaring the main point of your company. If they do change, those alterations can reflect poorly on the company, and render already distributed marketing materials out of date.
Writing Your Mission Statement
Before you can get to actually writing, you have to decide what you want to say. Set up a brainstorming session with other people who understand your company and determine what's most important. Forbes recommends answering the following four questions to figure out what your mission statement should look like:
- What do we do?
- How do we do it?
- Whom do we do it for?
- What value are we bringing?
Focusing on these questions and making sure your statement answers them will help you avoid vague, buzzword-heavy mission statements that don't actually say anything. When you're coming up with your mission statement, a way you can test if it really answers these questions is to have someone who knows nothing about your business read it, and then ask them. If they can't answer the questions, you need to rework your statement.
Go into writing knowing that it's going to take time. Even though your mission statement should be short (Inc recommends trying to keep it to one or two sentences), it will still probably take hours of work to produce. Set aside time to really dedicate to brainstorming, writing and hearing feedback, and allow yourself to rewrite if the first try doesn't quite get the job done. Your mission statement is how your company greets the world: It's worth putting in the time to make sure that first impression is strong.
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