No Mission Statement to Drive Day to Day Operations

One of the trademarks of a small business enterprise is the apparent willingness to assume the entire organization will understand the day-to-day mission of the company without communicating it to the team. This a critical issue for the sales team. Since they are more likely to be personally driven, they are left to go their own way without any consistent input on their activities,

 A mission statement is an action-oriented statement declaring the purpose an organization serves to its customers. It often includes a general description of the organization, its function, and its objectives.

Often, we will see a police department’s mission statement painted on their vehicles. The statement assumes that the citizens know that the statement is referring to the police when it states: “To serve and protect the lives, property and well-being of our citizens.”

This should encourage not only the officers, but the general public as well when they ask what purpose the police are serving.

One of my previous employers is Vallen Safety. Vallen is in the safety equipment and MRO supply business. Their mission statement says: “Our mission is to provide the products and services your business needs to build and maintain a safe, healthy and productive workplace.”

This provides the individual salesperson with an overview of their daily goals when they structure their day and ask themselves what’s the purpose of this phone call, preparation effort, and presentation. Granted, it does not address the highly competitive nature of selling in an MRO supply environment. However, it does serve as a directive to sell the correct products into the companies that have a need for those items. It also, provides a guideline for the product managers to stick to the core product lines and avoid diffusing the image and capabilities of the company.

It is important for the ownership of a small firm to develop and implement a mission statement for the company that is stressed on consistent basis. Your mission statement should make it very clear to the sales team what their focus must be when they interface with your prospects and customers. Your mission statement provides an aspect of hope to your team that the owners and management are engaged and concerned about the future of the company. Which, of course, includes them.

Not only does the mission statement provide guidance to the company, but it also provides an ever-present marketing effort on behalf of the company. Display it on your website, in your building, in the warehouse, at the bottom of your sales flyers, the back of business cards, at tradeshows, on quote responses, on social media, and on company sponsored webinars.

Use it as a tagline when introducing yourself in public. And use it as a banner on company newsletters.

The mission statement positions the company as a supplier of goodwill to your prospects, customers, and business associates. It should serve as a branding tool and a statement of principles that the ownership wants communicated into the business community.