What is a Mission Statement
The Mission Statement is the “Who”, “What”, and “Why” within your business plan. It’s positioned at the very start and defines your purpose and core principles. It will briefly cover:
Who you are?
- What you do?
- Why you exist?
- Who you exist for?
- What image you want to carry?
The more socially and environmentally conscious you can answer these, the better (but don’t say it if it isn’t a decisive factor).
Spending time thinking about the core principles of your SaaS or Tech product as well as the company, affords you the chance to define your goals, culture, and early standards for decision making. It also allows you to think about “who” your target clients is, “what” benefit they gain from using your product ahead of competitors, and “why” they will be happy to continue to use you, extending their own Life Time Value! This again may help you to determine your principle reason for being or even dictate the direction of your road map.
I bet your staff will want a happy workplace to turn up to each day too. You can define that here. And forever make it happen.
How to Write a Mission Statement
My top tips for a good mission statement are as follow:
- Keep it clear and unambiguous. It’s a statement you’ll review and refine year after year, but nonetheless, you know who you are, and who your product will appeal to. Document specifically, what that is.
- Keep it concise. Half a page to a page should cover it. This isn’t the Business Plan after all, merely a scene setting introduction. NB: Other than kudos, snappy one-liner mission statements miss the benefits of proper business planning too. Furthermore, these businesses will almost certainly have a far longer statement for internal use. If it’s important write it down. But it shouldn’t need explaining (here).
- Covers the whole of the organisation. This is unlikely to affect (m)any of the company’s I work with, but a separate mission statement for individual divisions or products misses the mark. We’re discussing your company culture and your reason for being as a whole.
- Open Ended and not quantifiable. We’re not looking to set targets. The mission statement is who we are plus a set of values to abide by. You will hopefully work within the bounds of your mission statement in everything you do. But you’ll never achieve it.
Access to the mission statement is one of the first documents I’ll request when I join a new company. It gives me an immediate awareness of the basic objectives of the company and even what constraints we are bound by.
Writing a set of broad-based principles that you’ve sat and thought about, and can refer colleagues too, is surely a great start to any business.
By Christopher Grubb. You can find out more about me here.
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I hope the above has helped.
The role of the Finance Director does not need to be a full-time overhead for someone to be committed and make a difference to your business. My aim is to simplify the financial performance, planning and strategic positioning for SaaS and Tech businesses who just want their world to be uncomplicated and thrive.
Please feel free to message me with any comments or questions. Or find me on LinkedIn here.
