How and Why to Create a Mission Statement

Crafting Your Mission Statement

A well-crafted mission statement can help you focus on your business better. When you decide to create a mission statement, it requires that you sit down and truly consider what you want to accomplish with your business outside of making money. You can look at it every day, hanging on your office wall and it will empower you to do the best at all times for your business and your clients’.

A mission statement needs to explain why your business exists. It guides your actions (and the actions of your entire organisation) by providing a path toward reaching your business’s goals.

Most mission statement encompass just a few sentences that answer:

• Why does your business exist? – If you don’t know why you’re doing it, you can’t do it well.
• Who does your business exist for? – You have to know your audience to deliver the right products and services.
• What product or services do you offer to them? – If you can’t describe what you provide, it’ll be hard to move forward. It’s easy if your product is tangible, such as ice-cream or widgets.
• How your business is unique? – What differentiates your products/services from the competition? Why are yours better?
• A mission statement isn’t your strap line but it can encompass it.

Once you answer the questions, consider that your rough draft in which you can now find better words to describe each answer, forming a cohesive mission statement.

Your mission statement comprises just a few sentences, making up a concise paragraph that describes why your business exists, for whom, what products you deliver, and how they’re different from the competition. The words you use must be understandable to your audience. Get the opinion of your audience about whether it makes sense or not.

Your mission statement is for you and those who work for you to keep focus on what is important. It doesn’t have to really resonate with those outside of the business. But it does need to help guide you forward and inspire you to reach the ideas within the mission statement. It needs to describe what’s truly important about your business, outside of money.

The mission statement should focus on your core competency. What is it that you do for others?

My mission statement is; To offer a professional and efficient administration and business support service to Sole Traders and SME, as and when required. Using expertise and experience to successfully work alongside any business as a Virtual Assistant.

It is hanging on my office wall as a reminder for me to provide my expertise to every business that needs my support. I also provide a copy for potential clients’ in my ‘Welcome Pack’

My strap line is; Work Better, Work Smarter, with Virtuoso-PA© and this is added to my Social Media profile Headers. You may have seen it.

[bctt tweet=”No matter how small your business you need to have a goal and a mission.”] The will to succeed and provide the best product or service you can possibly provide.