Three Reasons Why You Need a Mission, Vision, and Value Statement

Three Reasons Why You Need a Mission, Vision, and Value Statement by Kass Fogle

“A goal without a plan is just a wish." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I’m not much for winging it. I’m an operational consultant helping small business owners build strategic plans and quarterly objectives, so I wouldn’t be much of an operations consultant if winging it was my strategic game plan. 

From an early age I was planning and organizing everything from my wedding to my funeral (true story). I organized a play in fifth grade and a couple of years later organized a menu of fun activities for the kids at my dad’s company picnic. Not only is planning in my genes, but I completely geek out on it.

So, when I come across brilliant CEOs, entrepreneurs, and expertpreneurs churning out their next great idea without the benefit of a foundational plan, I fear they’re on the path to:

• Costly financial decisions,  
• Limiting opportunities, and
• Capacity issues that lead to overwhelm 

They begin their business with flames of passion that quickly burn out because they’ve taking on too much, hired assistants without the right set of skills or fit, or find they spend more time invoicing, marketing, fixing website glitches, and other operational job hazards because they didn’t have a plan or the right plan, or the right people to execute the plan.

That’s why I always start my small business strategy sessions with the triple threat: A mission statement, a vision, statement, and a value set. From there, business owners find they have much more confidence building out their strategic plans, outlining their projects and crafting KPIs that help keep them on track. 

Even those who’ve found success winging it in the past felt more secure and less frazzled about running their business when they went back to identify their mission, vision, and values. They had more time to create, build, design, and envision.

First, let me share the challenges clients have faced when they didn’t start out with their mission, vision, values, and subsequent strategic plans in place:

They Made Costly Financial Decisions

Their services were not well defined. They were too broad and had a difficult time explaining their services in a clear and concise manner.  

They didn’t understand whether their financial choices were helping or hindering their success. They made decisions based on a perceived need rather than whether it tied back to their strategic plan or quarterly goals. Often, this was a costly error.

They purchased every webinar, template, and resource they heard on a podcast or read about in a Facebook group and was left with credit card debt and an inbox full of expensive tools that clouded their mental and emotional capacity to work on their priorities.

Limiting Opportunities

I had an Etsy client who didn’t capture the process for onboarding and tracking new customers. She simply took the order, captured the least amount of information possible, then delivered what was asked. They completely missed the opportunity to capture information that captured more personal information so they could keep in touch, send personal notes on birthdays, celebrate the anniversary of their purchase, email them holiday discounts catered to their purchase, etc. While they had ‘in their head’ that customer service was one of their values, they’d never stopped to outline and plan what their customer’s experience should look like. 

Capacity Issues that Lead to Overwhelm

Entrepreneurs like yourself often get through the week on caffeine and fortitude, but this can lead to burnout. QUICKLY. When the solution to meeting unrealistic deadlines or fixing operational inefficiencies is always, ‘work harder,’ or ‘make more sacrifices,’ burnout is inevitable. I want us to focus instead on creating the strategies that will drive the decisions that most successfully support the MVV. If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “I’ll figure it out later. I know what works for my business right now,” you may be missing out on best practices and key ideas that will help you increase your income or reduce your hours. Or reduce your stress!

What the Mission, Vision, and Value Statements Are

The mission, vision, and values are the foundation of your strategic plan. It brings all your great ideas into laser focus.

But I didn’t always feel that way. Honestly, in my younger years, it pained me to have to sit through a day with the Director of Marketing to list buzz words on a white board. It felt like fluff to me; a way for executives to brainstorm trendy phrases while the real work piled higher and higher on my desk. Harsh. 

Since then, I’ve had several ego checks and met a few thought leaders who helped better shape and form the importance of creating the Mission, Vision, and Values of a company. These thought leaders taught me that MVV Statements guide and define where I’m going and how I’ll get there. Specifically:

• Where to invest,
• Who ideal clients and customers are,
• How time and other resources should be spent,
• How success is measured,
• What services should be offered,
• What learnings need to take place for personal and career development,
• Crisis management, and more.

Now that understand why we need a MVV Statement, where do we start? 

Mission

Kill the boardroom buzzwords. The mission statement is to clearly and actionably define who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. It should completely set you apart from your competitor. Look at your current mission statement. Is it clear that it is YOURS? Or, could this belong to any business?

Your mission is your announcement on why you are in business. If you had one opportunity to pitch your business to a bank for a loan, to a group of investors, or to that one big client who could take you to the next level, would your mission statement blow their socks off? How would it compete with the next business owner pitching their idea? 

Involve your team or, if you’re solo, involve those who are stakeholders like your spouse, significant others, or those impacted by the decisions you make in your business.

Not sure where to start? Go easy and build and polish from there:

I ___(solve which problem)_________  for ___(specifically whom)____ by __(my unique offering)________.  

Get as specific and granular as possible and build from there.  Switch up the ordering to make it flow naturally.

Remember, your mission, by omission, also describes what your company isn’t and doesn’t do. As you grow your business, you will repel, disinterest, and otherwise be ignored by those who are not attracted to what you do. This is a good thing. You want your time and energy spent on those who get you, need your services, and want to build a relationship with you. 

Here’s an example of my mission statement:

Vim & Vigor Business Operations Consultants partner with solo- and expert-preneurs to build a strategic plan, and identify the goals and projects necessary to increase revenue, promote growth, create efficiencies, and improve visibility, so business owners and leaders can focus on the creative, technical, and visionary side of their business.

Vision

Your vision is just for you. It’s not on a website, your business card, or your sell sheets. It needs to be BIG and describes what you want your business and your personal life to look like in X number of years. 

Imagine you’re beginning a mastermind of like-minded professionals in your industry. You’re sitting around the table and discussing best practices. When you get together five years from now for a celebratory reunion, what 5-10 things do you want to be able to say you have accomplished?

• I will have enough revenue to take on one part-time, non-profit client, pro-bono.
• I will have all personal loans paid off (cars, college, etc)
• I will work for myself full time, no more 9-5!
• I will have XX% profit margin.
• I will have 3 employees or independent contractors.
• I will have 2, VIP annual retainer clients, a profitable evergreen course, and a profitable membership club.

Are these big enough?  Are you leaving a legacy behind or are you just trying to pay the bills? Both are okay because it is YOUR vision for what is right for you. I’ve found that with the creation of an actual vision, I am more mindful of how I spend my time and whether all the good ideas, workshops, and opportunities are what is best for me right now, in this quarter, based on my strategic plan that supports my mission and vision. 

Are you seeing it all coming together?

What NOT to do in describing your vision: how you will accomplish something. If you start doing this, jot those notes in your mission, not your misison. Remember, this is your statement of “I will.” 

Values

Your values will help set apart the dream clients, jobs, and projects from the nightmare ones. My values are stated clearly in my contracts so there is no question that my foundation is built on my faith and I am committed to honesty, service value, integrity, clear communication, emotional intelligence, and service.  

Start out by building a long list of things important to you. You’ll probably have twenty or more. 

Write those twenty down. Now, narrow them down by checking off the values that are triggered when you place yourself in the three scenarios below. 

1. An organization from the other side of the political fence asks you to run a branding campaign for them. How would you respond emotionally and intellectually? 
2. A long-term client contacts you and asks you to do something borderline unethical. What might that be? 
3. Look back over your lifetime. Where have you been an influencer? What organizations have you served? What values did you share with that organization? Have you ever left an organization because their values did not align with yours? What were they?

Which of the 20 or so values you wrote down sprang to life as you read these scenarios? 

Now, to really make sure you’re are separating what’s important from what is a CORE VALUE, ask: would you change your mind if someone offered you $10,000? What about a million? 

If “I will not work on Sundays,” is a core value, but you’d do it for a million dollars, it might just be super important, rather than a core value. But if you wouldn’t even tell a tiny, little lie for a million dollars, you can confidently say that honesty is a core value. 

The more confident you are those values wouldn’t change because the conditions of meeting those values, changes, the more likely it is a core value.

Your mission, vision, and values are the foundation on which your business is built. Of course, you can launch, plan, drive, and move forward with your dreams without them, but building your business plan, starting with your mission, vision, and values, will help you build and support a growing and thriving business.  

I’d love to help you! Take this quiz to see if you’re ready to get started. 

Kass is the CEO of Vim & Vigor Business Operations Consulting and podcast host of The One Burning Question Microcast (coming soon!).  As a consultant she helps small business build strategic plans that help increase revenue and reduce stress. She also provides consultation in project management and human resources, along with keynote speaking on a variety of business and leadership topics. Kass is also an award-winning author and blogger at The Introverted Believer.