How to articulate your philosophy, values and mission to your audience clearly and effectively.
What is your company's mission? What values does it have? Does it align with your personal values and philosophy?
Let's look at some of my favourite mission statements firstly before we go down the rabbit hole about how to construct one in English.
*Save the children: ''Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.''
*Pinterest: ''To bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love''. It's the biggest dataset of ideas ever assembled, with over 200 billion recipes, home hacks, style inspiration and other ideas to try.
*Sony: “To fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity.”
*Google: “To organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
*Airbnb: “To create a world where anyone can belong anywhere and we are focused on creating an end-to-end travel platform that will handle every part of your trip.”
*Twitter: “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers.”
*Ikea: “To offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low, that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”
*LinkedIn: “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
Instagram: “To capture and share the world’s moments.” Instagram branding revolves around creating visual impressions that leave its clients with long-lasting memories, and this is what this mission statement alludes to.
What is a mission statement?
A mission statement is a brief description of your company’s purpose or your own personal purpose and how it serves audiences through the types of products or services you provide them with. It may also include your core values, philosophies or goals, all of which can help to reflect your uniqueness and what sets your business apart from others.
It can be part of your business plan when you start a business where it identifies your company’s purpose and is also a way to publicly share why your company exists.
What should I include in a mission statement?
Some important questions to take into account that will help you define the purpose of your business or brand. These include ” or “What sparks the passion behind it?”
Use clear and simple language. Keeping it short and simple will help you convey all the important elements of the mission statement, like core values, to employees and customers. In order to make sure there won’t be room for any misinterpretation or misunderstanding, avoid using buzzwords (technical words with little meaning) flowery language (elaborate words rather than simple words)
What does your business do? State what your company does. You don’t need to be fancy, simply state whatever it is your retail business produces or provides.
Why do you do your company do what it does? State how your company does what it does. This does not need to be a detailed description of how you operate your business. You can describe how your business works in more general terms and incorporate one or more of your core values.
State why your company does what it does. Think about why you started your business in the first place—share your passion for starting your company.
Who are your customers? A clear mission statement tells potential and existing customers what to expect from you and can provide your employees with direction, inspiration, and focus.
Be inspirational. Let your company’s personality or your personality shine through your mission statement. It should reflect the ideas that make you or your company different from others. That said, you’ll want to write yours in a way that not only makes it unique, but identifiable so that it strengthens your brand identity and perception.
By writing your company mission statement, you are able to define the cause behind your brand. Then, you’ll be able to use it in your business proposal as well as in a business pitch.
Furthermore, a good mission statement is effective in acting as a guiding light for the way in which you or your company conducts itself. This means that the statement should become a key part of your company culture to make sure everyone is aiming for the same goals. It will help employees understand the value of what they do.
If you have any questions of need help constructing your mission statement please don't hesitate to send me a comment.
Let me know some of your mission statements below in the notes.