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A company’s mission is the purpose or goal that it is working towards. This might simply be based on achieving a certain level of quality in the product that you sell, or it could be geared towards a specific cause. For example, maybe you’re a non-profit organization promoting sustainable energy and the world’s transition away from fossil fuels. Your mission would be to help safeguard the environment for future generations. You may choose to express your purpose in a mission statement: a brief declaration of your company’s values.
Why is a company mission important?
Shares your company’s purpose
Identifying your company’s mission will provide clarity to your employees as to the purpose of their duties. Once you understand why your company exists, you can build out a powerful mission statement that can motivate your employees to strive for progress. You may ask yourself, “What sets us apart from other companies selling the same products or services?”
Directs a company’s goals
A company’s mission statement can guide its actions and express its vision and core values. It becomes the rubric with which you judge key performance indicators within your organization and allows you to assess new endeavors critically. Viewing the work within your organization as a mission can refine the decision-making and strategic planning of your employees, and the expectations of your investors.
Clarifies Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Employees need to know what success looks like within the organization. By tying your company mission statement to your KPIs, it helps your employees to better understand how the vision affects practical, day-to-day operations.
Shape a company’s culture
With a well-formed mission, you can infuse your company’s culture with a greater sense of your core values and purpose, helping to motivate employees to strive for success. Your company mission statement can play a key role in creating a more meaningful workplace for your employees, thereby improving their job satisfaction. In addition, the increased sense of unity engendered by a shared mission can aid team cohesion.
Builds greater brand awareness
A specific, concise company mission can build brand recognition for customers, allowing you to carve out a niche in your market. One of the best places to use your company’s mission statement is within advertising and marketing materials such as catalogs, billboards, and social media posts. This helps drive early adopters to the new products you might be selling, while also establishing a reputation.
In fact, promoting your mission can go a long way in building customer loyalty. Communicating the ethical and social aims behind your products will help customers to see the connection with their own values and to engage emotionally with your brand.
How to create a company mission statement
It’s important for your company mission statement to be short and easy to understand so that it can instantly convey a picture of who you are as a company. However, it can seem difficult to narrow down the many things your company does to its core guiding values. Below, you’ll find some of the best tips to approach this task.
Ask yourself, “What does my company do?”
Try to explain the aim of your organization in a clear and concise manner. You don’t need to overthink this—simply write down the main products or services that you sell. For example, “My company creates and manufactures microchips,” or “My company provides lawn care support.”
Describe how you do what you do
Next, try to define the specific processes that you use to create the products or services that you sell. By digging down a little deeper into the intent, you start to differentiate yourself from the competition. For example, “We use innovative techniques to develop the processing power of our microchips,” or “We make beautiful outdoor spaces.”
Distill what you do and how you do it into one sentence
Now that you’ve clearly identified what your company does and how you do it, combine that all into one sentence. For example, “My company champions innovation in order to manufacture microchips with the highest processing power on the market,” or “My company creates beautiful outdoor spaces by providing expert lawn care support.”
Discern why your company does what it does
When you’re discovering the intent of your business, you’re going further than the practical elements of what you do. In fact, you’re touching on the purpose of your organization within the wider marketplace and in the world.
This is an opportunity to inspire and excite by tapping into a unique vision. For example, “We strive through innovation to give our customers the greatest computing power available with our high-quality microchips,” or “Through our expert lawn care service, we strive to create aesthetically pleasing outdoor spaces that will enhance our customers’ quality of life.”
Discuss the first draft
As with any creative endeavor, you should submit the first draft of your company mission statement for criticism. Ask key investors and executives to read over the statement and provide key insights into it.
Next, ask your employees what they think of it. Those working in your company could have different views of the mission statement, and you may gain valuable insights that might have been overlooked when it was discussed by the board.
Implement your company’s mission statement
You may go through several drafts of your mission statement before you finally settle on one that is well received by management and employees, but the process doesn’t end there. Next, you need to make sure you put your company mission statement to use. It should feed into every area of the company’s operations, from strategy to culture, and should be a point of reference when planning any new initiatives.
Conclusion
A well-written, concise company mission statement can boost employee morale, align the expectations of investors with your vision, and infuse purpose and meaning into your company’s everyday operations. It can be communicated through marketing materials and even consumer product packaging to build greater brand awareness. Furthermore, you can use it to guide key performance indicators and strategies within your organization, optimizing your teams for success.
