11 Tips for Writing a Business Purpose Statement
How do you write a statement that defines your business purpose? Here are 11 excellent ideas from small business thought leaders.
Give one tip for writing a business purpose statement?
To help you write your business purpose statement, we asked our community and other purpose-driven business leaders this question for their best ideas. From making the writing a team effort to laying out and humanizing your message with clarity, there are several ideas that may help you craft a business purpose statement that truly represents the objectives of your business venture.
Here are 11 tips for writing a business purpose statement:
● Make The Writing a Team Effort
● Capture The Deeper Intent and Value for Your Work
● Let it Be Meaningful and Memorable
● Make it Tangible and Adoptable by Everyone
● Present it As a Springboard for Ideas
● Use Polished Language and Be Honest
● Keep it Simple and Clear
● Set it Up for Future Revision
● Create a Draft and Have Your Team Review it
● Focus On The First Sentence
● Lay Out and Humanize Your Message With Clarity
Make The Writing a Team Effort
Even if you are the sole proprietor of your company, don't write your mission statement in a vacuum, in my opinion. Getting feedback from others, both inside and outside the firm, is quite beneficial. Collaborators can help you identify the strengths and shortcomings of your mission statement more clearly. Involve employees, family, and friends, as well as clients with whom you may have a close professional relationship.
Sumit Bansal, TrumpExcel
Capture The Deeper Intent and Value for Your Work
When we became a B Corp in 2018, there was a strong feeling that we needed to find and document our 'purpose'. We were inspired by all the amazing B Corps out there who were really clear about the benefit they wanted to deliver to the world. For companies like Articulate Marketing with a strong commercial intent, we didn't have the option to change our 'raison d'etre' and marketing has some pretty negative overtones. Just think about the jokes you hear: 'don't tell my mother I work in a marketing agency, she thinks I play the piano in a brothel' etc.
So evolving our business purpose statement allowed us to uncover and capture a deeper intent and value for our work that now guides the type of clients and work we take on and how we do it. Our purpose is to 'inform, connect and inspire'. It is aligned with our work as a marketing agency but it goes far beyond merely helping our clients sell more stuff.
Matthew Stibbe, Articulate Marketing
Let it Be Meaningful and Memorable
Some of the best business purpose statements hit the nail on the head by being brief, meaningful and memorable. A purpose statement answers the "why are you in business" question. Examples found online include - Patagonia: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis;” JetBlue: “To inspire humanity — both in the air and on the ground;” Tesla: “To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy;” TED: “Spread ideas;” and LinkedIn: “To connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
Kim Allchurch Flick, Mighty Epiphyte Consulting LLC
Make it Tangible and Adoptable by Everyone
Purpose statements give businesses a reason to exist beyond profit. Crafting a great purpose statement can help a company build connections with both employees and customers. Creating a purpose statement that is tangible enough to be adopted by every person is one of the best ways to ensure a great and long-lasting purpose for your company. If it is written in plain language and resonates with others, it will inform decisions and help navigate interactions with the business. It should be written in a way that employees can take it and put their own value behind it no matter what their job may be and allow it to give them a greater purpose beyond work.
Jeffrey Pitrak, Transient Specialists
Present it To Feel Like a Springboard for Ideas
Your purpose exists to give you a purpose for existing. It inherently suggests that there is something you are here to do. So how can you write it in a way that sets people up to create ideas so that it actually happens? Is it distinctive? Is there a tangible verb in there to inspire people of the kinds of actions the business could take? Does it capture the type of people you are hoping to get business from? Does it express the kind of tangible change you want to see in the world? For example, just saying 'our purpose is to make the world a better place' is not a springboard. How do you define 'better'? Higher levels of happiness? More profits going towards sustainable practices? What is 'the world'? Countries? People? The art world? The finance industry? In what ways could you 'make' it happen? By defining it and making it actionable, more ideas will come to keep driving it.
Hannah Ray, TAKE Coaching Amsterdam
Use Polished Language and Be Honest
Be truthful. Make certain that when you read your own mission statement, it accurately reflects your beliefs. Too much pomp and self-congratulatory language will turn off those who read it, so avoid claiming that your company is the best or the world leader in this or that.
Refined Language. In my opinion, make sure that numerous pairs of eyes (preferably wordy, editor types) look over your goal statement several times until every word sizzles. Your mission statement should be clear, concise, and error-free. It should be exciting and motivating. In a nutshell, it should be as close to ideal as possible.
Kenny Kline, BarBend
Keep it Simple and Clear
When writing a business purpose statement, it's important to keep it simple and be clear. There will always be a lot of ideas and concepts that you want to get across to potential business partners. However, stick to those that are easy to understand, explain, and back up. The goal is to have folks understand your business' purpose from those one or two sentences.
Sarah Vito, Yellow Emperor
Set it Up for Future Revision
Once your goal statement is complete, start sharing it by posting it everywhere you can. It should be prominently displayed on the corporate website, as well as in brochures and other marketing materials. Consider including it at the bottom of company emails or distributing it as a news release. Use your imagination to spread the word.
Your mission statement should not, in my opinion, be fixed in stone, no matter how beautiful it may sound right now. Your company's mission may alter as your firm grows and evolves. Examine your mission statement on a frequent basis to see whether it needs to be amended or updated. If you've hit the nail on the head the first time, you shouldn't have to change it much as time goes on.
Dr. Frederik Lipfert, VPNCheck.org
Create a Draft and Have Your Team Review it
Create a draft of the business purpose statement. With any written document, it needs to be sent through several drafts until it reaches its best. Have legal teams and copywriters review each draft and share any suggestions they have. In doing so, it ensures the business statement is in its best condition before going public.
Jodi Neuhauser, Ovaterra
Focus On The First Sentence
The first sentence of your statement should encompass your purpose without needing any supporting text. This will make your purpose clear immediately to the reader. From there, the additional sentences should support the first sentence and include additional details important to your business.
Elizabeth Zuponcic, Focus Insite
Lay Out and Humanize Your Message With Clarity
A business purpose statement should leave nothing to the imagination. Start by laying out the bare bones of what your company wishes to accomplish, in as simple language as possible. Once that's done and you're satisfied that your goal is understood, go back over your statement and try to humanize your phrasing. Thankfully (especially in English), there is an abundance of useful phrasing and synonym choices that can make even a simple sentence more palatable. Focus on getting your message across first, add the fluff later.
Alex Chavarry, Cool Links
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