Do you actually know what each of these are in your business? Can you articulate them?
They are three words we hear all the time…
What is your mission?
What is the vision for your business?
What are your values?
Being able to establish these three things in your business clearly is such an important part of being able to set the direction and plan with purpose.
The mission defines what the business does.
The vision is what the business would aspire to be in the future.
The values are the guidelines you work with for decision making on all levels.
I talk about business foundations a lot, but mainly from a systems, process, tech, implementation perspective. The foundation of mission, vision and values is just as important as your plan for the future.
Writing out a statement for each one is a step often missed when planning goals for the business. Doing this will help to reflect on where your business is in general in the market, its service or product value, and evaluating who you are as a business and what you want to achieve for the next 6 months to 5 years depending on your planning strategy.
This process of writing the statements of mission, vision and values isn’t a ‘set it and forget it’ task. It’s really important to keep this process ongoing to ensure that as your business evolves, your statements are still relevant.
So let’s look at each one in a bit more depth.
Mission Statement
Why does your business exist? What is the purpose, and how do you create value for your customers and clients? This should be short and snappy so your potential customers can quickly understand what your business does.
Vision Statement
This is the aspiration you have for your business. It’s about looking forward and creating a visual image of the ideal state that you would like the business to be in over a certain period of time.
Values Statement
What are your core values? This will usually be a list of 5 core principles and beliefs that directly guide the business decisions. This is often referred to as the essence of a business. If you have a team, this set of values will also determine the culture of the business, both inside and out.
Mission, vision and values should all work together. Your mission is what your business needs to do to get to the vision. The values underpin both of these aspects to make the business prosper.
Even if you think you know what these three things are for your business, write them down and put it somewhere you can see it as a constant reminder (great when you need a boost of motivation too!).
For a business to be scalable it must have clarity around, not only goals, but the mission, vision and values that are driving those goals. But action and business processes will make these goals, and your statements actually come to life.
Now comes the fun part. Plan out how you’re going to enhance your mission, achieve your vision and keep showing up in your core values. That is what will make the difference to the trajectory of your business.
