What’s Your Mission? (or to put that another way), Why Are You In Business?

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What’s Your Mission? (or to put that another way), Why Are You
In Business

- by Todd Jensen

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If you don’t know, your customers surely don’t. More
importantly, if you don’t know, you won’t be able to tell
your customers why they should choose you over your
competitors. Answering this simple question is critical to
forming a mission statement and creating your marketing
strategy.

Undoubtedly when you decided to start your business you had
an inspiration. Was it to provide a service or product
better, faster or cheaper than what was currently available?
Was it to fill a gap in the marketplace? Perhaps you were
inspired to run a business that people enjoyed working for
or that maintained environmentally and socially responsible
ethical standards or that surpassed existing companies in
providing superior customer service. Whatever your mission,
find it and then write it down.

Experience shows that companies with a clear and ever-
present mission statement surpass their competition and last
in the marketplace. Mission statements define and preserve
and strengthen a company’s unique competitive advantages.
Additionally, companies who are clear about who they are and
what they do are less likely to make irrational decisions in
response to competition and fluctuations in the marketplace.
However, that does not mean your mission statement should be
inflexible. A good mission statement can lead a company for
10 to 20 years if time and effort were spent in creating it.
However, re-evaluating your mission from time to time to see
if it is still relevant, significant and appropriate is
advised.

You want to create a statement that you and your team can
look to every day and ask “Am I fulfilling the company’s
mission?” For example, one mission statement could be “to
be the leading game software developer for teens”. A more
actionable mission statement would be “Surpass XYZ games
developer in sales, customer experience and speed to
market”. The second mission statement has clear goals and
direction, while the more abstract version would be more
appropriate for a vision statement than a mission statement.
The second statement clearly supports the vision statement.

Think of Thomas Kincaid, he could have decided to paint
bucolic scenes and sell them in a local gallery, instead he
decided his business wasn’t just about making accessible
art. Like Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren and Eddie Bauer, he
decided his business was about presenting a lifestyle. So he
found a way to mass-produce what seem to be original acrylic
paintings, opened franchises across the US and now sells
everything from paintings to knick-knacks to homes in Thomas
Kincaid developments. Now that is the sign of a clean and
clear mission.

You can distinguish your mission statement by including a
call to action. This is missing in most company mission
statements and has several defining and distinguishing
characteristics:
     It motivates and generates an emotional reaction from your
     team.
     It is easy to understand and translates into what your
     employees do every day.
     It states a goal that can be measured and identified
     easily.
     It reflects and is rooted in the competitive environment
     in which your company functions.

Think back to this mission statement: “Surpass XYZ games
developer in sales, customer experience and speed to
market”, if you run this statement through the above four
qualifications, you will get a yes every time.

When creating your mission statement, consider these aspects
of your business:
     What is your company’s history and tradition? How does it
     influence what you want to accomplish today and in the long
     term?
     How do you characterize the management philosophy of the
     company? What input does management have in the direction
    of the company?
     What distinguishes your company from all of the other
     companies that perform the same service or function? How do
     you already surpass the competition? What can you do to
     continue surpassing them?
     What goals are realistic when considering the available
     resources?
     Where do you need to improve in order to beat the
     competition? What are your competitors doing that you can
     imitate and improve upon?

This article brought to you by Todd Jensen, a member of the
Principa Alliance.

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Todd Jensen, “The Profit Engineer”, has helped hundreds of
business owners make their businesses more successful and
profitable. For tips and strategies on how to boost your
business success as well as increase your profits, visit
http://www.theprofitengineer.com or http://www.maxqtc.com
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