Writing a Mission Statement

How do you develop a winning mission statement?

One that fits on the back of your business card but doesn’t clutter the whole thing up?

The more important question is: When do you write your mission statement?

Many want to write a mission statement too soon.The sequence should be strategy formulation, business plan, then mission statement.

Strategy formulation will force you to narrow down what your central business value proposition is.  Knowing where you give value to the world makes it simple to formulate your message.

Crystal clear strategy answers this question: What one thing must my team be great at to have a great business?  As that one thing changes, you will still know it and be able to adjust your business accordingly.  (A business performance dashboard keeps track of the most important aspects of your business so you can see what is changing.)

I say business plan comes next, but that is just as a way to verify your strategy and make the purpose of your business completely clear to everyone.  You don’t need to have your business plan 100% done to move on to writing your mission statement.  (Actually, your business plan is never done.)

Once you know your strategic imperatives and have communicated them well through your business plan, you are ready to write your mission statement.

Look for how to write your mission statement in the coming week.

Tags: Communication, Leadership, Strategy

This entry was posted on July 13, 2010 at 7:54 am and is filed under Business Plan, Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.