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The 6 Important Steps In Writing A Mission Statement
There are six important steps on how you can write a mission statement.
Start By Defining Your Business In the Market
Define Your Business For What It Can Do For The Customers
Define Your Business For What It Can Do For The Employees
Define Your Business For What It Can Do For You
Think About Anything Extra That You Might Want
Polish and Finalize The Statement
As a business owner, you probably do a lot for your business (both generally and in terms of marketing) in order to make sure it reaches its potential clients in the best light, but here’s the thing. Nothing better than a well-written mission statement that can ace this marketing job for your business. As someone starting out, you might not know much about how to write a mission statement.
Don’t worry because we've got you covered. This post covers almost everything that you need to know on how to write a mission statement for a business. So, read on: Before anything else, let us just jump straight into discussing the thing you are here for i.e., how to write a mission statement. Later, we can discuss what exactly we mean by a mission statement with some examples.
Why do you need a mission statement, is a good question. In short, we will be sharing with you some proven and expert-recommended tips to write an excellent mission statement. Below are the steps you need to follow to write your mission statement. Make sure you retain the order:
1. Start By Defining Your Business In Market
You cannot expect to write a clear mission statement unless you know exactly how you want the market to refer to your business. Hence, no matter how much time it takes you to do it, make sure you first clarify the kind of business persona that can best attract suitable clients. Work on this area a bit more and define how your business differs from all the others in the market.
Define what is the most unique service or product you can offer and make sure you know what your business is not. You do not have to worry about the language and technical jargon of your statement at this point. This step is just so you are clear on your business and how you want the world to view it. Just make sure you pen down the answers to this part as briefly and concretely as possible.
Keep things real and do not let your passion for your business consume you. Make sure you only define your business as what it really is. Extra glittery descriptions might sound great to you, but they will later confuse you about your business’s actual standing in the market.
2. Define Your Business For What It Can Do For The Customers
Okay, do not confuse yourself between this step and the first one. The first one was about defining the kind of niche for your business in the market. That is something realistic with no adjectival descriptions. However, in this step, you are supposed to add value to what you defined your business to be, as in the first step. To do so, just start using one or two words to describe the good things that your business will offer its clients.
Do not worry about your business not being anything extra special. You are not in the market to offer solutions for issues such as environmental degradation or lack of word peace. Even when your business sells printed tees, a simple value-adding feature like high-quality or fine printing is enough to attract your customers.
However, doing so is not easy. Every other tee shirt selling business might provide the same features to their clients and this sort of takes away the uniqueness of your business. You can think about the good things your business can do for the world or society that any other tee shirt business might not be doing. You can even think of future CSR initiatives.
You can make your mission statement a means to tell people how your business gives back to the community with every sale you make or can talk about your environment-friendly initiatives. Just please make sure to keep your tone more realistic and less overtly emotional because that is not going to benefit you or your business in any way.
Rather, lies and extra glittery claims in your mission statement ruin your business’s reputation for people and they stop trusting you.
3. Define Your Business For What It Can Do For The Employees
There is no way you can expect your business to last for long and build for itself a reputation in the market as well as in the eyes of the customers unless you prove your friendly and humane treatment of your labor force. This declaration of your care for the workers is another great thing that, when present in your mission statement, can entirely step up the perspective about your business that people can have in their mind upon their first interaction with it.
No, you do not have to be pompous to tell others about how your business treats its workers. If you have searched up a bit already on how to write a mission statement for a business, you would know how there is so much influence on letting your mission statement do the talking about company culture. Do not just use bland words and write a statement on how you treat your employees in the best possible way. That won’t work. Rather, simply define your company culture in a way that is oriented less towards profiting and more towards employee betterment.
Put it concisely and make sure you stick to it for the rest of your life because not staying true to what you claim in your mission statement is downright dangerous for your business’s reputation and will surely backfire in the worst possible way at some point. Hence, here are some words you can utilize to define your company culture and its values better:
Diversity
Quality
Respect for all
Fairness
Creativity
Training
Innovation
Empowerment
4. Define Your Business For What It Can Do For You
Now, this is something not many will tell you in answer to your question on how to write a mission statement. When you write a mission statement, you write it not just for the clients but also for other businesses and people who might be interested in investing with you later on. You can babble all you can to your prospective business partners about how you know it all about financial record organization and tax preparation.
Nothing will entice them more than your mission statement and how it incorporates an owner’s benefit from your business. No, you do not have to be very direct about an employer’s benefit from your business here. Rather, simply use a statement or two that you would use if you were to sell your business’s stocks to a prospective buyer.
No matter how much your business gives back to the community and benefits its clients, at the end of the day, it is supposed to pay you back and help you make your ends meet. There should be no shame in accepting this subtly in your mission statement. No, money is not the only thing you want to get through your business.
You probably start a small business at a time when you do not feel like keeping up with your 9-5 job. You might want peace of mind and hence start a business. Or, your business might be your means to interact with your employees in a friendlier manner instead of sitting idle at home with no human interaction.
By the way, if this is your purpose behind a business, make sure you use tools like paystub maker to ease your life as an employer. Now, whatever it is that you want from your business, write it in your mission statement clearly so others know what they are getting themselves into when investing in your business.
5. Think About Anything Extra That You Might Want
Depending on the kind of business you run and the kind of message you want your customers to get from a mission statement, you can add anything extra that you might want at the end of your mission statement. Just make sure it does not sound extra different from what generic mission statements are like and is not at all in conflict with whatever you have stated before in your statement. Keep it concise and valuable enough for the readers if possible.
6. Polish and Finalize The Statement
The last and the most important step in our answer to your question on how to write a mission statement for a project or business is to edit and polish the statement you are left with after completing all the above-mentioned steps. Here, you can use your peer’s help or read something along the lines of how to write a mission statement example to get a better idea of what to expect from your statement.
You can shorten it without ruining its meaning and can replace one word with another to make your mission statement more stylistically appropriate. Cut our vague ideas and turn generic statements or phrases into more profound and clear ones. Here ends our answer to how to write a mission statement for a project or a business. Oh, wait there is something else we want you to know to be better able to ace at this job. So, read on
How To Write A Mission Statement: Examples
Below are some ace mission statements by the world's most well-known business. We are not telling you to copy these as they are, but you can go through them to get a better idea of what a great mission statement feels like: To begin with, let us see Apple computer’s mission statement for the year 2020:
“Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984.
Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms—iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS—provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and iCloud.
Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it..” Profound and clear right? Now, let us have a look at the best sentences from IKEA’s lengthy mission statement: “We make this possible by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”
As for referring to employees in your mission statement, we think that there's nothing better than the American Express’s mission statement. “We have a mission to be the world’s most respected service brand. To do this, we have established a culture that supports our team members, so they can provide exceptional service to our customers.” truly inspirational!
Want to keep your mission statement brief yet sweet and interesting? Here is Starbucks' mission statement to your rescue: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” You can search for other examples from businesses that are the best well-known in your market niche and can take away anything that you like in them to apply it to your business.
Why Do You Need A Mission Statement?
Your mission statement can be a defining point for your business’s value for the clients and future investors. It can singlehandedly represent the best and the strongest things about your business and, when written with thoughtfulness, can instantly get people to trust you. Many people will judge the kind of business ethics you have by reading your mission statement and understanding the kind of work you have done to write it.
If not present from the beginning, a mission statement can ruin your business’s reputation and can ultimately affect its chances of success.
Tips To Write An Excellent Mission Statement
Be concise
Be clear
Do not write stories and fill in details that won’t interest your readers
Try to refer to a wider audience of all kinds in your statement
Never be afraid of being different
Discuss it with your employees and ask for their opinions on it
