Mission statement, It doesn’t matter if you are a brand new startup or a small business offering a service, or a product for decades, you need one. As a business owner, you know where your business is right now and where you want it to be. However, one consistent fact is most business owner haven’t taken the time to create a visual representation of their business. Chances are, they haven’t taken the steps to create a milestone of where they are and want to be, so that a month, or a year from now, they can see how far they’ve grown, or even if there was growth.

Our Primary Mode of Communication

Before delving into this post, allow me to digress for a moment and talk about something I’m enamored with. Words. Do you realize the words we speak, or write is as important as the air we breathe? Think about it.  What would life be like if we couldn’t speak, or write, or read words in all its forms? Whether it’s in my native English or through myriads of other languages in existence, the usage of words is our primary mode of communication in every conceivable way. And, as a business owner, you must use something that’s as innate as the air you breathe, optimally.

Words are important

But you can’t just walk up to a potential customer and babble about your business and expect that potential customer to buy your product or use your service. Create and optimize words in its highest conceivable form to convince that stranger walking down the street, or surfing the internet, or meandering through one of today’s social sites to want what you offer.

Successful business owners discovered that what they communicate matters

Words have the power to determines their achievement. That realization happened either at the start of a business, or after. At some point, pen connect with paper, or fingers fly across a keyboard, intending to move an idea of business success from a thought to a tangible visual representation of true expectations.

Here is another extraordinary fact that’s as amazing as our use of words: We all don’t fit neatly in a box. That previous sentence is one of my favorite idioms. For me, it’s saying we are not a carbon copy of each other. Another idiom.  These wonderful idioms aside, as a business owner, we grow at varying speed, and so I will not say in this post that you must take your business goals and ideas from your mind and make it tangible by writing them down. Instead, consider this post to be a reference point. When you are ready, it’s here. Take into account the options mention in this post and future post on the topic. Pick one, or use all when the time is right, or when you are ready to accelerate your business goals. Here is the first optimal use of words to grow your business.

 Create a Mission Statement

Hopefully, my introduction above convinced you of its importance. If you’ve ever wondered what a mission statement is here is a formal definition. It’s a summary of the aims and values of a business, regardless of its size or type. Use Wikipedia to delve deeper into its definition, and you’ll learn there are three parts to a mission statement:

•  Key market: The target audience
• Contribution: The product or service
• Distinction: What makes the product or service unique and why would they want it.

Write a mission statement to clearly outline your business goals and agenda. Also, to provide the best outcome for your customers. In order to do that, you need to understand who you are targeting, what you are offering, and how you will stand out from your competitors. As a business owner, the value or purpose of a mission statement is to clarify a business path to success.

Examples of well-known mission statements

LinkedIn: Connect the world’s professionals to make them more successful and professional.

American Express: Become essential to our customers by providing differentiated products and services to help them achieve their aspirations.

Honest Tea: Seek to create and promote great-tasting, healthy organic beverages. We strive to grow our business with the same honesty and integrity we used to craft our recipes, with sustainability and great taste for all.

Don’t be a part of the norm

Most businesses usually conclude that they don’t need a mission statement, especially if they are new or small. It’s understandable why you would think that way. Your competitor doesn’t have one. Right? My question to you is: Are you sure? Yes,  most medium to large businesses have their mission statement on their website. Just because you are not the size of American Express, it doesn’t mean a mission statement isn’t valuable.

Yes, you need a mission statement. It doesn’t matter if you have a few customers or a thousand. A paragraph outlining what your business goals are is an essential step that can only benefit your efforts to grow your business.

This is part 1 of a series on building your business with the right content

Part 2 will delve into why you need a vision statement. As a business owner, understanding and knowing about the content you need to build your business and your brand is a relevant part of achieving success. Yes,  those blog posts you need are important. And well-written content on your site is also equally important. But you need to have the right content that conveys your inner vision and capture your audience. The more you can encapsulate your business purpose, the better you can take advantage of services such as mine to suit your business needs. Stay tune for more in the series.