Follow Your Mission (Statement)
Short, targeted mission statements can be extremely effective in helping launch and run a business.
Years ago, mission statements – manifestos describing what your company is all about – were often lengthy, unwieldy and sometimes pompous things. Today, nobody has time for all that. A mission statement is still important—for your employees, your partners and your customers—but it has to get to the point quickly. “The trend has gone to short,” says Jeffrey Abrahams, a marketing consultant and the author of 101 Mission Statements from Top Companies (Ten Speed Press, 2007).
How short? How about summing up your values and goals in 100 words? Better yet, 25. Dave Friend, the founder and CEO of Carbonite, a Boston-based company that provides data backup for small businesses and individuals, got his mission statement down to 21 words: “Provide an inexpensive, reliable and truly easy-to-use solution for the mainstream PC user; one that is simple, safe and always on.” That’s it. All of it. His vision statement, which describes where the company sees itself in the future, is a dozen words: “Carbonite was founded in order to provide Internet-based Backup for Everyone.”
“If I can’t explain it in a sentence, it’s too complicated to be a business,” says Friend. What’s more, a wordy mission statement won’t do any good. Friend, a serial entrepreneur who created and sold five software and telecom companies before Carbonite, says he’s seen mission statements that were “utterly meaningless, generic business babble,” which got hidden away in file drawers, never to be accessed again.”
In contrast, Friend hears Carbonite’s mission statement articulated all the time at the office, when there are discussions of how doing a certain thing will help the company achieve its mission. “It’s the guiding light,” he says.
“If you try to do too much, you end up doing too little, you don’t make it memorable enough, and you don’t say anything that’s going to stick,” says Abrahams. He cites two examples from his book, Adobe and Anheuser-Busch: “Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information” and “Through all our products, services and relationships, we will add to life’s enjoyment.”
Mission Statements as Tools
Of course, brevity isn’t the only goal. The point of having a mission statement is to improve performance. “First and foremost, a mission statement is a tool,” says Abrahams. Although he emphasizes that simply having a mission statement doesn’t guarantee better performance, he says that these statements can really help a company. It helps employees, become ambassadors of the company’s brands, improves focus and accountability. When employees know what’s expected of them, and they zero in on the company’s unique selling point, they set the right priorities and that helps make the organization more productive and profitable.
Within Carbonite’s mission and vision statements were phrases that became slogans. Friend has trademarked “Simple, safe and always on” and “Backup for Everyone,” the latter of which appears on Carbonite’s business cards and elsewhere. He took the trademark route to identify those descriptives with his product and prevent competitors from using them.
Chris Kouloukas, the founder and president of SOHO Hero, a franchiser in Atlanta that operates business and meeting centers, passes out postcard-size versions of what he refers to as the company’s reason-for-being statement to franchisees, franchisee employees, his own staff and vendors who want to do business with him. Whenever he meets with a potential franchisee, he shows them the card – the statement is embellished with brushstrokes of color – and tells the visitor what his company is about. Anything less than a 100 percent commitment means there can be no deal.
For Kouloukas, active use of the mission statement during these interviews helps “eliminate miscommunication” and potential roadblocks in the future. For example, because of the mission statement, franchisees have a better understanding of what’s expected and, therefore, Kouloukas says, he needs fewer staff members to keep tabs on the them. In the 16 months since using the mission statement, he says his revenues have doubled to just over $1million mark.
The mission statement will also keep the company on course and true to its mission as it grows, the founder says. “It keeps our culture intact.I want to keep the purpose alive.”
“A good mission statement helps keep me on track when considering new business opportunities,” says Jocelyn Silverman, founder and creative director of 304 Media, a graphics and web design company in Boca Raton, Fla. Silverman, who is constantly exploring new ideas to expand her business, uses her mission statement to weed out potential ventures that are not aligned with her overall goals.
And Paul Roetzer, founder and president of PR2020, a public relations agency in Cleveland, Ohio, whose hallmark is affordable set services and pricing and appealing to “underdogs,” uses his mission statement to assist with “brand comprehension.” Roetzer has seen the impact using a mission statement has had on new business development. “We have a better idea of who our core customer is,” he says. “Clients with an ‘underdog’ mentality are willing to take risks and do more innovative things, such as viral marketing and social networking.”
Drew Stevens, a management consultant in St. Louis, cautions not to expect a mission statement by itself to make a difference in your business. You and your employees still must walk the talk: “These instruments cannot ensure success, they can only be a guide to what your success can be.” And, he adds, companies can be trapped by an outdated mission statement that has not kept up with changing needs.
The big payoff of a mission statement, however, often comes in relations with people outside the company. Abrahams notes that his neighborhood dry cleaner, owned by people whose first language is not English, has a mission statement posted behind the counter. “Their mission statement spoke to uncompromising service and quality so, even if direct communication with the owners could be challenging, I knew that management would take responsibility to make sure I was satisfied,” he says.“Mission statements tell customers that a company is not resting on its laurels and they’re going to be accountable for what they do,” he says. “Seeing that mission statement makes me feel better about doing business there.”
