Your Business needs both a Mission and a Vision Statement

Monday Marketing Minute
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Do You Have a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement for Your Organization or Business? You Need Both. The cat in “Alice in Wonderland” tells Alice: “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.” This sage advice holds true for both a person’s purpose in life and also the mission and vision statement for a business. However, the “there” in business may not be what you want, which could possibly be business failure.

Creating a mission statement comes first. This states what the business “is”. Next, create your vision statement; this states what the business “wants to be”. Both are very important, yet many businesses fail to grow because owners and ultimately the staff and employees don’t have this “road map” to follow and to track and to help stay on track. Here are a few examples to show the difference of a mission and a vision statement.

Mission Statement examples:

Facebook: Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

Google: Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Vision Statement examples:

Avon: To be the company that best understands and satisfies the product, service, and self-fulfillment needs of women—globally."

                  

Amazon: "To be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online."

Some large and small companies have both a mission statement, and a vision statement, yet some don’t “have it right”. Note that the mission statement often times uses the words “mission statement” within it’s statement. The vision statement many times starts with the word “to” as shown by the two examples above. This reflects the “aspiration” for what the people of the business should always be striving for.

There is much to know and much work in creating the best mission and vision statement for your business. You can always tweak and change this over time, but it is much better having the best possible, if possible,  before you open the doors. Not having a mission and vision statements or having the wrong mission and vision statements can be as harmful for a business as having a poorly executed logo. Request a free rating of yours simply by requesting it by using the inquiry form at: www.terscott.com/contact. You’ll learn much from this “no fee” service. Then, if you’d like assistance in creating or revising your mission and vision statements, request details about my consulting service.

Yogi Berra told us: “If you don't know where you are going,
you'll end up someplace else.” In business I think you’ll agree, you want to know where you are going and end up where you want to end up; successfully doing what you love!

Make it a great day!

Ter Scott!