Mission Statement Template - [A Useful Step-by-Step Guide]
Big and small businesses need to communicate their value to customers to get sales and increase their popularity. They must positively shock the public and connect with them as soon as possible. The best tool to achieve that is a mission statement template. In this post we share some tips and templates to create the mission statement your organization needs!
Mission Statement Template - [A Useful Step-by-Step Guide]
What Is a Mission Statement?
Mission statements correspond to the declaration of principles of organizations. Through mission statements, businesses communicate to their clients and general customers the reason for their existence. A company mission statement defines the following:
The products or services your company provides.
The target market and where people can get your product or service.
The company's purpose.
The positive outcome of your product or service.
Beyond all this information, a good business mission statement should be authentic and inspire people. For this reason, the positive outcome is an essential part of your company's mission statement since it communicates value and engages people.
A good mission statement should be a length of two or three sentences maximum, i.e., around 100 and 120 words.
Types of Mission Statements
There are three types of mission statements. Each of them is crucial for any organization. Consider this before choosing your template or starting to build your own document.
Business Mission Statement
This is the most common type of mission statement, which we mainly discuss in this article. Thanks to this, companies can explain their motivations and primary objectives. It is also great to attract new talents, inspire current workers, and spread optimism among employees and clients.
Non-Profit Mission Statement
Every non-profit business expresses its main guiding principle. For such purposes, a non-profit mission statement is the best tool to let the public know the nonprofit organization wants to help the community.
Personal Mission Statement
As its name indicates, this mission statement focuses on an individual's mission. So, thanks to this document, you can define and express your professional goals and values. As an independent professional or leader of an organization, you can share your skills and how you develop them.
This type of statement can also help you evaluate your own competencies and encourage you to think about your purposes, goals, and values.
Why Should Your Organization Adopt a Mission Statement?
A mission statement provides you with multiple benefits in addition to reflecting the main objective of your organization.
Focus your attention on relevant elements. Many times, organizations need to learn what their mission is and which are the key elements that differentiate them from other companies.
Keep your ideas organized. A mission statement's structured format will help you keep your thoughts in order and ready to be used in other messages, emails, or whatever.
Check how your company grows. Revisiting your ideas will help you identify if your business is growing in more detail.
Encourage collaboration. It gives any member of your organization the opportunity of inputting ideas as you write the document.
Follow your thought process. Your team can understand how the ideas and concepts used in the statement came to life.
Writing a Mission Statement, an Step by Step Guide
Below we describe a six-step process through which you can go through to write an excellent mission statement.
1. Take Inventory
Every effective mission statement starts with a gathering where all organization members discuss the business's relevant points. All of you should take an inventory of the following:
What are the tangible deliverables of your business?
What problems does your product or service help to solve?
What are the target customers of your business?
What are the key elements of your product or service?
What are the advantages of your product or service over direct competitors?
What are the main strengths and weaknesses of your business’s team?
Does your business have a particular location or exist in a specific region?
2. Answer Key Questions
Once you have all the previous information, you can use it to answer the five crucial questions of any good mission statement. These questions are the following:
What does your organization do?
How does your organization do it?
Who does your organization do it for?
Where does your organization do it?
What is the final value of your organization?
3. Whittle It Down
Now is when you use all the previous information to brainstorm ideas. Remember that a mission statement explains the five questions you see above, so the ideas your team brings to the table should answer them.
One phrase or two should synthesize your company's mission and vision statement.
At this point in the process, you've likely landed on phrases or words you want to use in your new mission statement.
An excellent formula to create the best mission statement is the following:
We [provide the value] to [target audience] by [what your organization do] through [how you do it].
A modified version of the same formula is the following:
We [what your business do] by [how you do it] for [target customers] to [ultimate value you provide].
4. Add Color
Writing a good mission statement for public relations is similar to writing any other suitable text. Beyond it must bring inspiration to the public; it has to be clear and straightforward. Thus, avoiding unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, and flowery is best since this can interfere with reading. Try to use emotional words that other socially conscious businesses do.
5. Make It Public
One of the most critical points of any business strategy is to let the people know your mission, vision, and company's goals through your mission statement. Then, it's time to make it public to create an emotional connection with the audience. Some common ways of doing this are:
Create a particular page dedicated to your vision, business goals, values, and, of course, mission.
You can use it as a homepage headline.
Use it in your company's social profile, such as social media.
Insert it in a job posting.
6. Adjust as Needed
All businesses change all the time, including the market, customers, technologies, and more. Besides, your company may implement solutions that you have never implemented before. Due to this, you must revisit your mission statement from time to time to update it and adjust it to the new times.
Some Mission Statement Examples
Now we're giving you some famous examples of mission statements that perfectly synthesize those mentioned above.
WIX: “Create your own professional web presence –exactly the way you want.”
WIX's mission statement declares the organization's purpose: to help people create an online space for them. It's a powerful mission statement since it is short, straightforward, and allows people to choose what they want.
Google: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
The company website stresses that it’s capable of gathering much of the world’s information and putting it in a free space. Google reflects its clear vision about the role of information and how it improves the general life of everybody.
Tesla: “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”
This example mission statement immediately expresses its core value: it's putting all its efforts into transforming the world's energy matrix to use clean energy. From a certain point of view, this is a personal mission statement since Tesla looked to "accelerate" the change to a new type of energy. And most important, the company clarifies the main Tesla's goal.
Microsoft: “To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”
It looks more like a declaration of principles. However, this statement still expresses the company's wishes to transform the world into a utopian society where everybody does what they love.
Starbucks: “ To inspire and nurture the human spirit –one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.”
Starbucks knows that it’s workers prepare the day's first coffee for many people worldwide. Starbucks also knows that a good day of dreaming in life starts with a smooth coffee, and that conversations with a hot drink can help to build community.
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.”
This statement describes the company's business plan since it remarks on the function of the platform. But it's also a strong mission statement since Airbnb declares its wishes for every person who uses its application.
IKEA: “Our vision is to create better everyday life for many people.”
IKEA brings functionality, style, and decoration to most people around the globe. Besides, this mission statement describes its wishes for people to know that IKEA wants to improve their lives.
Disney: “Our mission is to be one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services, and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative, and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world”.
This mission statement is longer than others, but it still reflects the entire company's spirit. Furthermore, it's very straightforward since it explains why the business exists and how the company achieves its purpose.
Patagonia: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
Patagonia goes to great lengths to differentiate itself from other brands by providing cloth with ecological sustainability regarding production and consumption.
Nike: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
Nike wants to highlight that anyone can be an athlete, and the brand will help you to achieve the best you can. Besides, this mission statement works extensively with a Nike commercial to make people feel inspired by the brand.
Some Tips When Writing a Mission Statement
Although writing a mission statement may seem easy, this is quite far from the truth. Now, we give you tips for achieving a higher purpose and writing your statement quickly.
1. Use Simple Language
We briefly mentioned this in a previous section, but it always helps to repeat it.
People and potential customers feel motivated by a direct message that straightforwardly communicates its ideas. A good vision statement describes the value of a company through a well-structured message with clear concepts and vocabulary. Try to make your mission statements resonate in as many ears as possible.
2. Gather Ideas or Feedback from Others
Although the first step to creating a mission statement is gathering your team to bring ideas to the table, you can always ask other people for ideas or feedback. Even new employees and other internal stakeholders in your organization can give you their opinion about the way you describe the organization's objectives. A small group of external people can also help you get unbiased opinions.
3. Show the Value of Your Organization
Customers want to know that your organization is the best choice to satisfy their needs, even if it's a nonprofit organization. Grand mission statements clarify the value of the business and how it will help clients to achieve their goals. Besides, you must highlight why your organization provides a unique product or service that inspires and motivates people.
4. Consider Emotional Elements that May Be Familiar to the Target Audience
Missions statements are more emotional than rational. Of course, you must clarify what your company does, but the emotional connection is even more critical. This way, your business will stand out over other organizations. Big companies look to touch a sensitive fiber in their target audience, and small companies like yours should do the same.
5. Look at the Bigger Picture
The bigger picture is the general frame where your organization's principles inhabit. A good mission statement should answer, specifically, the why of the business's existence and what benefits it gives to the world.
Mission Statement Templates
In this section, you’ll find two mission statement templates you can use to build the final version of your statement.
Mission Statement Worksheet Template
This free mission statement template is designed to respond to all the main questions we summarized in the "Answer Key Questions" section. It will help you better understand your business's functionality, purpose, and clients. Thanks to this template, you can write a mission statement at the level of circumstances.
You can download this mission statement worksheet template from Smartsheet.
Basic Mission Statement Template
This template integrates some questions of high importance to your mission statement. Members of your team, either leaders or employees, should meet to answer these questions to accomplish and write the correct mission statement. With the questions this template contains, your company will clarify what its attempts, the general scope, and the primary purpose of your organization are.
You can download this basic mission statement template from Templatelab.
Microsoft Office to Edit Your Mission Statement
To edit and create your own mission statement for your organization, you must have the proper software to note ideas and generate the final result. In this sense, the best is to use Microsoft Office and its applications, Microsoft Excel and Word, to write your accurate document. Here, on RoyalCDKeys, you can get a reliable copy of Microsoft Office 2021 Professional Plus Key Retail Global for €5,80.
The Bottom Line
We hope that any mission statement example we've provided you in this article has been helpful. Thanks to these examples and vision statement templates, you can explain your ultimate goals and the direction of your business.
Join all the members of your company, workers, people of human resources, and external stakeholders, and brainstorm all the ideas you have to create a first draft. Since that point, it's just a matter of editing and selecting the mission statement that better represents your organization's core values.
For getting other relevant templates for your company, browse our blog. Here you will discover valuable tools that help you to develop your mission and achieve your goals.