A mission statement is a key tool to focusing your business and directing it toward success. It may even be equally as important as your business plan because it conveys the goals and mission of your business to your customers, employees, suppliers, investors and the community.
Coming up with a statement that will encapsulate everything you want to portray about your business requires some self-reflection, but you shouldn't have to create the actual wording alone. Get together with employees, colleagues or even customers to brainstorm ideas and get honest feedback.
Crafting a valuable mission statement requires time, thought and planning. Many entrepreneurs have found that the process of drafting a mission statement is incredibly beneficial. It will help you clarify the motivations behind your business. Set aside several hours, or even a full day if you can feasibly do so, to get things rolling. Your mission statement should be short? somewhere around a few sentences? but coming up with the right concept and coupling that with inspirational language is a long process.
When you sit down to brainstorm, look at examples of other successful mission statements to get ideas. Consider every idea that comes to mind or is thrown out. Even the craziest ideas can lead you down the right path. The best way to get the ball rolling is to start with the right questions. Here are a few questions you should answer to get you and your fellow brainstormers thinking in the right frame of mind.
Once you have the concept and a general framework in place, jazz up the language. Every word is important, so use language that will inspire action or evoke strong visual images, like action verbs and colorful adjectives and adverbs. Be wary of adjective and adverb overuse though. You still want to sound professional. Also, just because you know how to use a thesaurus doesn't mean that you should use it for every word. Be choosy and make sure that each word truly represents exactly what you are trying to convey
After you've completed your mission statement, start shouting it from the rooftops. You need to convey your mission statement to others both inside and outside of the business. Let everyone know who you are, where you want to go and how you plan to get there.
