Why Start-up Businesses Need to Have a Mission and Vision Statement Right From Day One

Start-up business owners may think that it is not that important to have a vision/mission statement since they’re just starting out.  To most of them, there are other more pressing issues to think about like how to have the money for payroll next week!

Having a vision/mission statement written or even kept in one’s head has a certain power in it that could drive one to have a renewed sense of purpose.

Photo Credt: www,careerealism.com

I believe that it is something that must be internalized and must serve as sort of a mantra not only for the owner but for the rest of the staff.

It is a kind of recipe or operating procedure that should dictate the daily decisions and actions of everyone in the business, from the owner down to the delivery guy.

What about the big guys like Steve Jobs who founded the most valuable company in the world today? Did he have a sense of vision and mission when he was just starting out as an unknown dreamer in 1976?

Of course he had.  His vision “a computer for the rest us” was so compelling that it sparked the PC revolution and changed the way we work, play and live today.  He said: "We started out to get a computer in the hands of everyday people, and we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."

Your business may not become another Apple but with a sense of direction, it could be at least a leading company in your chosen industry.

To have a sense of direction, here are some bits of wisdom you may want to consider to help you to be on-course in steering your business towards its destination:

Know exactly where you want to go.  Don’t just utter motherhood statements such as “Company X shall be the leading provider of XYZ Widgets in the market”.  Be more specific. Since it’s supposed to be your guiding star in the wide ocean of widget manufacturers, you may want to say: “Company X shall be among the top 3 leading providers (if not number one) of Widgets in the market in 3 years.  This shall be your battle cry from day one and everyday thereafter until you reach the top 3 slots in 3 years. 

To secure the future, secure today.  Some philosophers say that there is no such thing as the future.  Only today matters. Maybe it’s true because today - the future of yesterday - is the result of actions and events that happened in the past.  Good or bad, the results speak for themselves. So to be among the top 3 widget manufacturers in your market tomorrow, do the activities that need to be done today. 

Create a road map.  You company mission is your road map, with which you’d take your business to your ultimate objective in the years ahead. It is the framework whereby you design the activities that you and your people need to undertake so everybody rows in the same direction.

Make everybody sing the same tune.  Imagine a concert of orchestra players each playing a different note while performing.  Imagine your sales people making delivery commitments which your production cannot fulfill. If this continues, do you think you can make it to your vision of being in the top 3 players in your industry in 3 years? 

Let everybody in the know right from day one. Starting from your first employee, it is critical that every employee you hire know that the company is making XYZ Widgets and what place does the company would want to be in widgets market. To align the entire team in the organization, you create a culture where everybody is aware of the company’s mission and vision.  When Honda was just starting out, a story was told that each and every employee was so committed to its mission of creating quality cars.  Some of them even went out of their way to fix the windshield wipers of Honda cars as they passed by at the parking lot! 

You cannot measure what you do not know.  Every now and then in your journey towards your objective, you need to measure how far you have gone from where you started.  If you have a well-defined mission statement, you will know precisely what to measure and how to measure it. This should apply on every other level of the organization.

Are you ready to sit down and take time to see where you are going and how you intend to go there?  If you haven’t done it yet, today could be your defining moment.