How to create a mission statement for your business

Key quotes:

• "More and more companies and organisations are waking up to the power of purposeful advantage — the commercial and competitive edge that you gain from having a clear “purpose beyond profit” at the heart of your business."
• "Instead, purpose statements are about the connection between the company’s core products and services and the benefits they deliver to people’s lives."
• "Here are our top five tips for creating an inspiring and authentic purpose statement."
• "Without that pinch of emotion, a purpose statement will struggle to inspire employees to embrace it as their own."
• "BT’s purpose statement, for example, is to “use the power of communications to make a better world” — the company’s core product, communications, is front and centre."
• "A good purpose statement should be plain-language and simple for employees, customers and stakeholders to grasp."

Key quotes:

• "What is your brand mission statement? Crafting a mission statement is as easy as stating what you do, who you do it for and what the benefits of your product or service are."
• "Answer the following few questions to start creating your personal or company brand mission statement."
• "You’ve answered five very important questions about what you do, who you serve, why you care, what the benefits are from working with you and what makes you special."
• "Take those words or phrases that really feel right and start mixing and matching them together into complete sentences."
• "Seeing it on paper will help you understand the statements that feel right (and those that don’t)."
• "Do they feel like they ‘get it’ or do they require some explanation to understand what your mission statement means? Make sure your statement uses simple, easy-to-understand words."

Transcript: Hi, my name is Erica Olsen. Today's Whiteboard session is on how to writea mission statement. Mission statements are foundational to anystrategic plan. You normally build one after you developedyour SWOT and before you go into the rest of your planning process. It's foundational because it answers the question"Why do we exist?" It clearly explains the space that we playand what's in, and what's out of what we do. And it's not where we're going, which is vision. So let's break it down. We use this example to explain the componentsof a mission statement. We use this checklist to talk about what makesa good mission statement, and we'll walk through a simple process to create yours. So let's jump in. The example we have up here is Google's andwe love using Google's examples because they're great and why not borrow from the best? So starting with our mission... I like to start it with our mission becauseit gives us a place to go and keeps us thinking about mission. You might get rid of it later, but start itthere. It has a verb with present tense "to organize." We explain what we do, "Organize the world'sinformation." For whom? In this... See more →

Transcript: What is a mission statement and how to create one for your organization at its most basic sense of the meaning a mission statement is a declaration of purpose anyone reading a mission statement should be able to tell in under 30 seconds the primary objective of the company or organization having a business mission statement is like having a guiding light that keeps you on track and reminds you of what's important it reminds you of your core purpose and something about how you will achieve it a mission statement is a brief description of a company's fundamental purpose it answers the question why do we exist a good mission statement isn't just a slogan it's an operation manual and it can't provide the guidance it's intended to provide if people aren't familiar with it a business mission statement is a written summary of how you want your business to look let's look at some examples Google's mission statement is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful Nike to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world Starbucks to inspire and nurture the human spirit one person one cup and one neighborhood... See more →

Transcript: When we talk about the future strategy becomes a dynamic concept which allows top managers to define goals and objectives for the future and outline how these goals and objectives will be achieved a great way to formalize a company's purposes goals and values is to have formal mission and vision statements both are related to the main reason a company exists and help stakeholders understand and keep that reason in mind okay so the mission statement addresses the question why do we exist or what is the fundamental reason for our organization's existence and the vision statement describes the desired future position of the company and answers the questions what do we want to achieve in the future and who do we want to become when trying to define the vision statement we should include specific goals and objectives goals help companies define what they want to achieve while objectives are the specific actions and measures for attaining these goals by setting goals managers commit themselves to a concrete course of action that would allow them to accomplish the company's vision goals can target different areas like growth profitability retention efficiency or customer service usually goals are expressed as... See more →

Transcript: For the longest time I didn't like writingbusiness plans. Here's why. Because every time it came time to write abusiness plan, it was almost as if my school teacher from Jr. high school would say, "Patrick,go do your homework. Write up a business plan." And I'm sitting here saying, wait a minute. First of all, I don't know how to write abusiness plan. Secondly, I don't think it works. I don't think it's effective. I don't think this thing's going to work. Until I realized how to write up a businessplan that worked for me and from there on, I could not wait to write up my business planfor the following year. So today, we're going to talk about two differenttypes of business plans. One, which is dissecting and spending six,seven, eight hours getting every single detail of your business plan in place, that you readonce a month. Then from there, gathering all the informationand taking all the simple things, the clear things that you need and creating a one-pagebusiness plan. And that's the one that you look at multipletimes per day. So we're going to cover those two things today. Now, prior to writing up a business plan for2017,... See more →

Key quotes:

• "A mission statement is different from a vision statement in that a vision statement imagines the desired state of your company, customers, or the world, in an attempt to inspire a sense of greater purpose, while your mission statement explains the strategy you are using to get there in order to motivate action."
• "A mission statement is an important part of your brand strategy and messaging, as well as providing a north star for your whole team to work towards, but how do you write a mission statement and how does it benefit you? There are many benefits to having a mission statement, including providing direction, measuring success, unifying teams, aiding in recruitment, ensuring accountability, and inspiring customers."
• "Your colleagues and customers will all know what you’re claiming to provide, so every decision must align with that purpose and work towards it in a meaningful way so as to maintain the integrity of your brand and contribute to your overall goal."

Key quotes:

• "To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected."
• "To deliver information on the people, ideas, and technologies changing the world to our community of affluent business decision maker To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."
• "Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities, and hope."
• "To help bring creative projects to life To connect people through lending to alleviate poverty."
• "To inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being by providing the best care to every patient through integrated clinical practice, education and research."
• "To deepen readers’ understanding of the world and to empower writers to share their best work and biggest ideas."

Transcript: Hi, I'm Erica Olsen. Today's whiteboard session is on putting togethera SWOT analysis for your organization. SWOT simply stands for Strengths, Weaknesses,Opportunities, and Threats, and the purpose of a SWOT analysis is to create a synthesizedview of your current state. And great planning, whether a strategic planning,marketing planning, operational planning, you name it, great planning starts with anunderstanding of where you are today, confronting the brutal facts, as Jim Collins says, soyou can build a future. And a SWOT analysis is a great way to captureand frame up what your current state is, so I'm gonna talk to you about what it is ina little more detail, how to put it together, and then quickly how to put it to use. Let's jump in. Strengths, we build on our strengths. Weaknesses, we shore them up. The right-hand side of your 2x2 matrix, whichis your SWOT, is your internal perspective. On the other side, we have our opportunities,which we invest or capitalize in, and our threats, which we monitor. External perspective. Tip number one, do not confuse your internaland external perspective. We're looking for a holistic view of yourorganization, and it's important to be really clear about what we can impact... See more →

Key quotes:

• "It is dedicated to provide products and services of such quality that our customers will receive superior value while our employees and business partners will share in our success and our stock-holders will receive a sustained superior return on their investment.’ You’d never know reading this that this company is GM and they make cars… ‍They’re known for being generic, vague, disconnected in any real way from the company’s activities, and sometimes even incomprehensible."
• "If written well, a company’s mission (its reason for existing) and vision (its ambitions and dreams for what it wants to create) will influence everything the company does, from its hiring and onboarding processes to its sales and marketing approach, to the products and services it offers."
• "eBay’s vision of a people-enabled, technology-powered commerce, and their mission of providing a global online platform to enable global economic opportunity, clearly feed into each other, but they are distinct, written in language which is accessible and easily understandable."
• "Although this vision and mission statement doesn’t articulate what exactly Decurion does, its raison d’être is clear and there is no mistaking that growing and developing its people sits at the very core of this business."
• "For more information on core values, mission and vision statements check out The Best Company Decks on the Web."