Developing a company mission statement is a sometimes tricky or time-consuming task. What is the best way for companies to get the full, true value from the process? What is a stumbling block they can avoid?
These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.
1. Make Sure It’s Scalable
Your company mission statement is one of the cornerstones of your business. When you first decide to create a business, come up with a mission statement that will scale and apply to your staff and audience, regardless of how much your business grows. One of the biggest stumbling stones that business owners face is that they’re not thinking enough about their statement before posting it live. – Blair Williams, MemberPress
2. Ask Yourself the Right Questions
When creating a mission statement, it’s important to ask yourself the right questions so you create one most suitable for your business. Why did you start in the first place? What are the values most important to you? Who are your customers? What problems are you trying to solve for them? What is your philosophy? – Jared Atchison, WPForms
3. Be as Specific as Possible
Do you know exactly what it is you want your company to embody and represent? If it still isn’t clear to you what values or goals are most important to achieving success, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. You don’t want to have a statement that continuously changes. You want it to stay the same even while your brand grows and it’s only possible to do that if you’re specific to your needs. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
4. Define Your Core Values
If you aren’t even sure what your company’s core values are, it’ll be near impossible to create a mission statement that’ll hold up throughout time and stay relevant. Make sure you come up with a list of values that are most important to your business and narrow them down as much as you can. Without doing so, you’ll be creating content blindly and for the wrong audience. – Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
5. Consult Your Team
Don’t just create a company mission statement and then spring it on your team unexpectedly. Consult with your team about it and test it out with them. Your company mission statement should be something all of your team members can get behind and so they should be a part of the creation process. By developing a mission statement together, it will better reflect the company as a whole. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
6. Don’t Rush The Process
If you’re building a mission statement from scratch or need to evolve one, then give your core team enough “think” time before jumping into a process or meeting, at least two weeks if possible. I suggest prepping brainstorms of any kind with teams via outlining what they need to think about before attending the meeting. This produces rich results because others can expand upon one another’s ideas. – Beck Bamberger, BAM Communications
7. Consider Your Business from All Angles
Crafting a mission statement shouldn’t be quick: It’s a process. Start by writing about why you started this business, who it will serve, what value it will offer and how you plan to offer that value. Be specific and detailed. Make a list of business values and then narrow it down to your top three. After writing as much as you can, boil it all down into a concise mission statement. – Reuben Yonatan, GetVoIP
8. Understand the Value You Create
For any organization to exist, it has to create enough value for someone else that they will want to pay for it. For our mission statement, we listed all the value we are trying to create, identified the customers for that value and then distilled all of those ideas into three basic but powerful concepts. Training our staff on our mission made an immediate positive impact on our organization. – Rob Brose, Chess Wizards, Inc
9. Make Your Mission Statement a Living Document
One big stumbling block is the mentality that once you write a mission statement, you are limited within its bounds. A mission statement is a living document and mentality. You will want to adhere to the principles guiding your business as you created it, but also leave room to grow and expand. Imagine your mission statement as a delta of neutrality where you can add provisions as you grow. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic
10. Simplify It
To get the full, true value from the process of developing a company mission statement, simplify it. Ask yourself one key question (and maybe pose the question to other high-level employees): Why are you in business and what do you hope to achieve? This avoids many potential stumbling blocks because they simply aren’t part of the process. – Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
11. Allow for Anonymous Contributions
Allow everyone to submit an anonymous Google form (or any other platform will do) with their suggestion for the core values. This tricky stage is often rife with conflicting opinions, sometimes resulting in certain opinions being pushed to the bottom, while others rise above. This method will allow all to contribute equally. – Yaniv Masjedi, Nextiva