What is a Mission Statement and examples for a business

byDrTerry

63 followers

2 years ago

The Mission Statement is the second of three blogs.

1. Red Ocean-Blue Ocean Theory, a mindset behind organizational transformation that allows you to compete with few competitors in your industry.
2. Creating your Mission Statement and why you need a Mission Statement.
3. Creating your Vision statement and why you need a Vision Statement.

All startups need a Mission Statement! The Mission Statement explains the following:

• Why the business exists?
• Who does the business serve?
• Why does the company serve those clients
• What problem does the business solve for their client?

What is a Mission statement?

Your Mission Statement explains the purpose and values of your business as it is in the present rather than the future. It details how it plans to succeed in its assurances and how it will connect the customer with the brand. The Mission Statement should be compelling and exciting so the customer resonates with the message, which means you need to know who your customer is.

Why Do We Need A Mission Statement?

When reading the Mission Statement, the reader should understand your intention, core competencies, and values. Following is a list of questions to get you started:

• Who are you as a business
• Why did you start our business? Otherwise, Why does your business exist?
• What do we do?
• What purpose does our company serve?
• How do we serve our customers?
• What are our intended goals?
• What is the endpoint?
• What actions will we take to get to the endpoint?
• What problem do we solve for our customers, even if they don't know they have the problem yet?
• How do we explain how important our customer is to us?
• Whatever we deliver has value, so what value will our customers receive?

By now, you might be wondering how a person can have a problem they are unaware of. We have a lot of issues we're not aware of. Let's take a truth few folks are aware of. I live in Florida, close to the Kennedy Space Center. A few weeks back, a friend asked me a question after watching a rocket launch: Why do rockets always head South after the launch? The answer is they don't! The rocket only appears to veer south because, while it is going straight up, we continue to rotate at 16 miles per minute, making it appear the rocket is heading south.

As you answer the above questions, you might see patterns that can be expressed as core values. The following is an incomplete list of core values as examples:

• Accountability
• Adaptability
• Autonomy
• Balance
• Clarity
• Collaboration
• Compassion
• Dedication
• Equality
• Integrity
• Innovation
• Growth
• Fairness
• Honesty
• Ingenuity
• Loyalty
• Quality
• Reliability
• Service
• Simplicity
• Sustainability

How Do We Create A Mission Statement and How Long Should It Be?

The mission statement should be full of Action. What do I mean by Action? The reader should not leave with a feeling of stagnant movement but instead sense activity in working through purpose and values.

The Mission statement should range from a couple dozen words to no more than 100 words. A good plan for writing a Mission Statement is to write down what you want to say and then add Action or Shiny words to polish it.

Where Will We Place the Mission Statement

We write a Mission Statement to inform our customers about why our business exists! The Mission Statement is essential to our customers, so where will our customers find our Mission Statement? Wherever our customers find your products/services! A few places to consider placing your Mission Statement is:

• On the home page of your website
• Any entrance point on your website customers arrive from a link
• Anywhere our customers find us
• On the top-most page of a blog subject
• Within specific search results, like when a customer researches your business

Your Mission Statement should be the central theme of your elevator speech. What is an elevator speech? Any time someone asks you what you do for a living, you should have a canned answer ready. Your elevator speech should result in at least 50% of those asking to want to know more.=

Examples of Mission Statements

I love to write, and I especially love to write Science Fiction short stories! When I began to write, I knew I would eventually get published, so I created my Mission Statement to understand who my readers would be. The following is my Mission Statement for my creative writing website:

My Mission Statement
I create stories with solid characters on and off the page as examples to live, love, and lead by. I write stories that affect change through the belief that anything is possible when viewing your immediate environment from a 360° perspective. My writing involves me as much as my reader because it gives us insights into who we are, what we need to change, and who we will become. I write stories that create a sense of community movement through collaborative cooperation between characters to solve larger-than-life problems creatively.

Dunkin'
Dunkin' is a household name and doesn't need much explanation. Notice that nowhere is coffee or donuts mentioned.
"We strive to keep you at your best, and we remain loyal to you, your tastes and your time."

Caterpillar
Again, because Caterpillar is a household name in the heavy equipment arena, they don't need to expand their reason for being other than using the word "build".
"We help our customers build a better, more sustainable world."

Zapier
Notice that Zapier uses words to imply that everyone needs automation, not just Big Business.
"We're on a mission to make automation work for everyone."

Your Mission statement is a statement of being described in the present tense. The reader should know everything they need to form a connection they can build on, which is another reason why knowing your customer is vital to success.

References

O'Hanley, H. (2015, May 1). Creating A Mission Statement. Arts And Activities. Retrieved July 15, 2023, from www.artsandactivities.com

Gillen, C. (2023, July 10). 23 mission statement examples (and how to create your own). Business Growth. Retrieved September 16, 2023, from https://zapier.com/blog/mission-statement-examples/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=gaw-gbl-nua-evr-search_nb_alldev_blog_prospecting_core-ads&utm_adgroup=DSA-BestApps-Form_Builder&utm_term=&utm_content=9011821&gad=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0qfU8dWvgQMVboJaBR1VvgxeEAAYAiAAEgIRmPD_BwE

Sweeney, D. (2022, April 28). How to Create a Mission Statement and Why Startups Need One. For The Life Of Your Business. Retrieved September 16, 2023, from https://www.score.org/resource/blog-post/how-create-a-mission-statement-and-why-startups-need-one?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgLK53eavgQMVwkxyCh3OlQNFEAAYAiAAEgKPYfD_BwE