A foundational step in defining your brand identity is working on your mission statement.
What Is A Company’s Mission Statement?
In a nutshell, the mission statement for any business, small or large, provides a clear and concise purpose for the business and its existence, and drives deeper customer engagement and allows for much more growth and market penetration within your industry.
There are essentially 7 steps to properly develop your company’s mission statement.
By going through this framework, you’ll create a mission statement which reflects not only the current state of affairs within your business, but its aspirational goals and objectives while operating under a single lodestar.
Your ethos, cultural identity, and core workings will all be aligned.
7 Steps to Developing Your Company’s Core Mission Statement
Here are the 7 steps, in order:
- Gathering Input
- Defining What Your Business Does
- Identifying Your Core Values
- Considering Your Business Goals
- Drafting Your Mission Statement
- Refining & Acquiring Feedback
- Finalizing & Implementation
Gathering Input
If you’re a business owner with no employees, this step is not entirely on you.
You can ask close friends and family members for bits and pieces of information, how they perceive you, your business, and what it may stand for. This won’t be easy, but it could be valuable, in any case.
If you’re a business owner operating with fellow owners and employees, you’re going to want to engage with your team for their input, too. This is not just an owner or manager responsibility, but should involve everyone as much as possible, no matter their role.
The objective of this exercise is to accumulate a large amount of opinions, perspectives, and ideals from all angles.
Next, you have the option of asking for input externally from previous customers or clients. This is probably a little less direct, but could be performed with surveys, acquired through testimonials, or other means. You might ask questions like:
- Why did/does our company suit your needs?
- What did/do you value most about our services?
- What are the reasons why you might recommend us to a friend?
Last, you have to have your own input, of course.
As the owner and founder, you will want to tell the story of why you started your company in the first place, what your original vision is, and how it may have changed, and what kind of personal touch you have which makes your business unlike any other.
All these things are, together, going to provide you with a diverse set of viewpoints to really begin defining your mission statement.
Defining What Your Business Actually Does
While this might seem obvious to some, defining your business by its core product or service, plainly, can be a struggle. Oftentimes, it’s stated in an exaggerated way, or one which uses too much industry jargon so the target audience isn’t able to identify with it clearly.
Stating your primary products and services in a clear, concise way helps any person feel more at ease because it doesn’t feel overwhelming, over complicated, or above their head in any way. Rather, they should be able to grasp the greatest benefits with as few words as possible without losing any meaning or magnitude.
This is something you might want to iterate several times, and even get an opinion from someone who doesn’t already know your services or products well.
Next, tie your service or product to the customer’s most crucial needs, or greatest benefit. If they understand your product but not how it can meet their personal needs, it still does no good.
State the product or service, match it to the core need or benefit, and see how much better someone responds with enthusiasm and understanding.
Last, be sure it resonates with your employees, and they are able to reiterate the same ideals with all their customer interactions.
Identify Your Core Values
Core values can be whatever you feel is best to embody your day-to-day principles when running your business. Whether it be high quality products or industry leading innovation, or perhaps an extremely high focus on customer service and satisfaction throughout their buying process. It could be integral employees, teamwork or other introspective attributes.
In the end, these values should still fit behind what your business actually does, and bolster the confidence in the customer (and your employees) that you have the ability and commitment to standing behind your product or service.
As is common, consider this a place to underpromise and over deliver, so it shouldn’t be overstated or overzealous. You can stand firm in your values without promising something you can’t actually provide.
Consider the Business’ Main Goals
Stating the goal of the business, as it relates to your service or product and core values, is the final step until developing your final mission statement.
In essence, think of why your business exists, what benefits it wants to provide, and how this will affect your local area or industry both in the short and long term.
If you’re a budding business, start small, and let your customers and employees know what you are aiming to accomplish in your area, and why you’re different. Many service companies tend to exist in the same area, and they can feel a dime a dozen if there’s nothing which sets them apart from the rest.
Incorporating a statement which resonates strongly with locals is ideal, but not always important if it doesn’t also resonate with your long term, high impact goals.
In the long run, what might be the value you add to your market or industry which will continue to bring value for decades to come? How many people do you plan to serve? How many families do you plan to employ?
These questions can help you shed light on what makes your business a bit more important than your competitors—this is sometimes referred to as a unique selling proposition.
Drafting Your Mission Statement
Compile everything you have from above and begin by putting everything down on paper in an organized manner. Take the input you received and do you best to:
- explain what your business does,
- while identifying your core values,
- and state your goals firmly.
This will give you a three part rough draft to run with, but you’ll want to simplify it, pare it down, and make it unique to you and your business. Whenever possible, simple, clear and concise is always the goal.
When you’ve got a few different versions, go through them over and over and see which ones seem to drive positive inspiration, aspirations, or sentiments, but make sure you don’t get too lofty or unrealistic.
Get Feedback and Refine, Refine, Refine
It’s time to take these different versions back to your team, employees, family and friends and share them.
You can try reading them aloud, in varying orders, and asking for favorites. You can write them down, again in varying order, and get your team to rank order them by what feels most natural and inviting.
Last, ask them about their favorite one, which one struck a positive chord, and see if there’s anything else which was left to be desired.
Finalize and Implement
That’s it!
While this can be a lengthy process, it can be a very rewarding experience to have gone through, and can really help you feel more confident in your product and service, and drive customer engagement.
It’s time to share the message, use it in branding materials or consumer facing labels, and even become a part of any written copy around the time of purchase to help the customer reinforce their feelings about their purchase, since many purchases have an emotional tie.