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Writing your own Business mission statement

Your business mission statement can be as important as your business plan. It captures, in a few succinct sentence(s), the essence of your business's goals and the philosophies underlying them. Equally important, the mission statement signals what your business is all about to your clients, employees, suppliers and the community.

The mission statement should reflect all the important aspects of your business.

Your mission statement should help clarify what business you are in, your goals and your objectives.

Your mission statement should reflect your business's special niche. Remember your mission statement is not a tagline or marketing message - it should be a genuine statement of intent by your business. If you're not serious about your business then nobody else is going to be serious about your business either.

To come up with your own business mission statement - you need to answers a few questions first.

  • Why are you in business?
  • What do you want for yourself?
  • What do you want for your customers?
  • Who are your customers?
  • What products and / or services can you provide for your customers?
  • What image of your business do you want to convey?
  • What factors determine pricing and quality?
  • What level of service do you provide?
  • What roles do you and your employees play?
  • What kind of relationships will you maintain with suppliers?
  • How do you differ from your competitors?
  • What do you do better, cheaper or faster than other competitors?
  • How can you use competitors' weaknesses to your advantage?
  • How will you use technology, capital, processes, products and services to reach your goals?

As you can imagine putting together a mission statement will benefit your business in the long run. It is clear that going through the process of writing your own mission statement will help shape where your business is going to be in several years time. In the process of crafting your mission statement it is advisable to discuss it with several people to get their views on your business looking on from the outside. Your mission statement can be as long or as short as you want it to be - remember it's not a business plan - it's a statment of intent - always keep that in mind.

Have a look at a few mission statement examples to give you some inspiration.

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