One of the most rewarding aspects of the work that I do at Cardone Ventures is teaching business owners how to take what’s already inside of them and turn it into tangible things that drive results for their business.
A central set of components in achieving this is through your business’s mission, vision, and values statements. Many businesses have them (or some of them) but too few actually use these tools for what they are. They’re not just statements tossed off in an executive meeting and placed on a poster or shared in a staff meeting, never to be referred to again. They’re powerful tools.
At Cardone Ventures we use our mission, vision, and values statements to help our organization accomplish what it has set out to do, and provide a framework for our strategy, our focus, and our decision making. We’ve done this for countless other businesses, too. And it drives results.
Your Mission Statement
Your mission statement should describe your business’s fundamental purpose. Why does it exist? What does it exist to do? It’s the present-tense statement of your organization’s reason for being.
The core components of of great mission statements
- Make it simple. Your mission statement should be no longer than one sentence.
- Make it relevant. Your mission statement should clearly describe the reason why your organization exists and why it does what it does. Not what it wants to do. What it does.
- Make it instructive. The mission statement isn’t just meaningless platitude. It should be a practical, tangible tool that you can use to make decisions about priorities, actions, and responsibilities in your business. If it doesn’t do that, then it’s not a mission statement.
- Make it with your team in mind. One of the biggest mistakes I see is a Mission statement serving two purposes: one for the team and one for your clients. Let’s get this straight. Your mission statement is for your team. Your Brand House is for your clients. If you don’t know what a Brand House is, come to our next 10X360 event where we break this critical Marketing tool down.
Guidance to make your mission statement even more compelling!
- Pinpoint your “Why” in your mission — create an emotional connection.
- Make it no longer than one sentence. Clear and concise.
- Use actionable “We (verb)” statements to communicate your passion.
- Ensure plain spoken language is used to maintain clarity.
- Make it compelling! Exciting statements will excite your audience.
This is the starting point for your mission statement – to learn how to implement your mission, you’ll want to read this.
Your Vision Statement
Your vision statement is designed to describe what you want your business to achieve in the next ten years. It’s a roadmap. It’s a statement that says, “In ten year, will will do [these specific goals].”
The core components of of great vision statements
- Make it simple. Just like your mission, this should be no longer than one sentence.
- Make it inspirational. Your vision statement is designed to describe the ideal future state of the organization. Make it something you all can be excited about!
- Make it quantifiable. Yes, this is a vision statement, but that doesn’t mean it’s a fantasy. This is something you’re actually going to do, so make it a tangible tool you can use to lead your group or organization to achieve quality results.
Guidance to make your vision statement even more compelling!
- Think critically about where you want to go and use this to make a 10-year outlook.
- Give it elements that are measurable and quantifiable so you can track your progress.
- Do a legacy gut-check. Is your mission fulfilling your vision? Does your vision relate to your mission? Do they reflect the legacy you want to create?
- Keep it succinct (one sentence), plain spoken, and easy to memorize.
- Use compelling and action-based language so that it’s aspirational and exciting.
Plot twist! You actually need three unique vision statements.
One for your Brand, one for your People, and one for your Revenue.
Why? Because these are three very distinct categories in your business that require separate but interdependent visions in order for you to be successful.
- A Brand Vision Statement should state the overall impact the business intends to create and the legacy you want to build over the next 10 years
- The People Vision Statement should share the goal for the type of culture and team alignment you’re targeting
- The Revenue Vision Statement should be crystal clear about your 10-year financial goal
The vision statement drafting process can be tricky at first so here are some additional pointers to get you started.
Your Values Statement
Your values exists to describe how your company conducts itself and serve one purpose: they are the filters for how you hire, reward, and fire team members. They aren’t to be rollout out and placed on a plaque at the entry of the busines, never to be discussed again. Values work when you USE them so you have to make them usable.
The core components of great values statements
- Make it simple. Values should not be esoteric. Make them as clear as possible.
- Make them memorable. Limit the number of values you define to no more than 5 to eightin total.
- Make them relevant. Your core values should define your culture, who you truly are, and how your business operates.
- Make them universal. Your core values should apply to the entirety of your business.
Guidance to make your values statement even more compelling!
- Be concise. No more than 5-8 WORDS
- Be distinctive. Don’t have your values be synonyms of each other. Each value needs to define a distinct behaior that you can measure in a performance review process. Pick the best word and remove the duplicates.
- Be compelling. If your core values aren’t compelling, they won’t be memorized. If they aren’t memorized, they won’t be used to guide your decision making.
- Be inspirational. Use compelling and actionable language to subconsciously drive your team to consciously drive the business forward.
Your values are truly the driving force behind your culture – here you’ll find out my 6 go-to core values for any organization