How to define your company’s mission, vision, and values?

On your website, you probably have a page entitled “Who are we?” That page should be meant to tell a little about your company. Of course, you don’t have to tell everything. It is necessary to limit to the most relevant, what the client, possible partners, or future employees want to know about your company. Most of the pages of “Who are we?” include a brief description of the company, a mission, a vision, and its values. What are they for? How are they defined? Here you will learn how to write the values, mission, and vision of the company, answering simple questions.

Why are company values, mission, and vision important?

Many may find it unnecessary to declare the values, mission, and vision of the company. However, like everything, it has a raison d’être. Having clear identity elements has many benefits, both for the structure of the company and customers. That is, declaring good values and a good mission and vision of the company can help you have a stronger company that gets to move much better in the market.

The values, mission, and vision of the company are part of the identity. When a company is founded it is not only to cover a need, there has to be a foundation beyond the economic activity that takes place. Otherwise, all clothing companies would be the same, there would be no distinction or personality, the same for those who are engaged in food and drinks or kitchen utensils. There would be no difference between one brand and another and no reason for the buyer to prefer one brand over the other. In products, perhaps one point maybe the quality of the product itself, but everything changes when we talk about services.

When you sell a service you can have a portfolio, success stories, customer recommendations… and still it wouldn’t be enough to show potential customers who you are. What makes one graphic designer different from another? Your style. It’s the same for services. What differentiates Word Stylers copywriting services from others? The balance between our commitment to professionalism and creativity and style, as well as our closeness to our audience through our blog. All this is on our About Us page.

On the other hand, having this kind of thing clear helps us to know how we manage as a company. the vision of the company tells us where we are going. The mission tells us what our raison d’être is. Our values are the way we do things to address our vision and stay true to our mission. That everyone involved in a company helps to generate a sense of belonging and loyalty among employees, makes them work for teams. Also, when you are looking for staff, the postulates will like to know more about who they are going to work for if they agree with their practices if their vision of the company is coupled with the plans they have for the future…

A very important point: the clients or partners of the company need to know who you are. Before making deals with you, buying your products, or hiring you, people will want to know who you are as a company. That’s why it’s important to have transparency about your company’s identity. If you build trust, you’ll get a lot more sales, hiring, and deals. Companies can’t be corporate anonymous, we have to think of them as people you want to trust.

Company Mission

The mission of the company is its raison d’être. To write a good mission for the company you have to ask yourself: why does the company exist? Many times this answer is aimed at covering some need, but it must also include motivations that have to do with what actions are carried out daily in the company to achieve their ideals.

Check out Tony’s Chocolonely’s company mission:

“Our mission? Together we make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate. How we are going to achieve that? It won’t be easy. And it’s pretty complex. But we will accomplish it with the help of Tony’s roadmap. Our roadmap has 3 pillars and points the way to 100% slave free chocolate”.

Tony’s Chocolonely’s mission is super well laid out and explained. On their page, you can read the whole problem on chocolate and modern slavery. Right after establishing their mission, they lead you to their roadmap which establishes three key points to achieving their mission. Those are the daily actions they take to work accordingly to the reasons they were created in the first place. When a company has passion in shows in how they explain their identity, and Tony’s Chocolonely does it really well by giving in-depth information about who they are.

The company’s vision

When we think about where we want to be in the future, we are thinking about the vision of the company. The vision should be inspiring, brief, and show the potential the company aspires to achieve. Precisely because it speaks of the future it may need to be updated over time. If your vision was to be the largest supplier of pencils in the region and you already are, you should set yourself a new goal. In addition to goals, the company’s vision should include goals that will help you meet your goals.

Let’s read Faber-Catell’s company vision:

“Faber-Castell is joining spaces where creativity and expression are flourishing, bringing together inspired and inspiring humans from all over the world. Since humans have had hands, we have been using them to make our mark in the world. To communicate, to feel, to move from thought to action. Humans grow through creative exploration and expression”.

It is a bit of a vague vision. it does link to the company’s values and their main activity which is creating art supplies. But it could be a better vision. If it added an explicit sentence where it stated what the company aspires for the future. For example: “Faber-Castell is joining spaces where creativity and expression are flourishing, bringing together inspired and inspiring humans from all over the world through creating better art supplies and expanding our exports to 15 new countries by 2022”.

Aside from talking about goals, a vision must state clear objectives to achieve such goals. that is why answering “how will we accomplish this” is crucial. Just state a few crucial points. That way you will be writing a company vision that is not only inspiring but also compelling.

Also, remember to update your company vision. Maybe back in 2001, you wanted to be the biggest cheese company in your state and now you are. So, what’s next? State a new company vision. Of course, you will have to remain true to your mission and your company values.

Company values

We leave for the end the values, but these should be the first you consider. The values of the company will be the limits under which you will set goals, objectives (vision of the company) as well as the way to proceed (mission of the company). Imagine that among your values you have: environmental conservation and in your vision you are looking for the growth of your company. Perhaps a quick way to grow would be for you to stop spending resources on renewable energy or water systems, but if you put it aside you betray your values.

Although the values aren’t just limits, they can also be the characteristics of your working method. If you have a firm of architecture and among your values is the creativity, that means that all your projects, the proposals to the client, have something new to offer, that you know to solve problems in unexpected ways, that you seek to innovate… All these are excellent ways to proceed for a business of this kind. Your values should go well with your type of company and show the best of you, your working method, or your purposes.

Let’s read Sephora’s company values:

• Respect: We are fearless in fostering a sense of belonging for everyone
• Passion: We are fearless about putting our client at the center of everything we do
• Innovation: We are fearless when we take risks to enhance the client experience
• Initiative: We are fearless when it comes to taking action and designing solutions
• Expertise: We are fearless when it comes to learning and growing
• Balance: We are fearless in demonstrating care for ourselves and each other
• Teamwork: We are fearless in how we work together and accomplish any task at hand

What’s good about this is that it is not just a list, it states how these values are applied. Values are reflected on the mission and vision but giving that little bit of an extra explanation goes a long way. It helps clients visualize how you truly operate everyday.

Conclusions

The corporate identity is shaped by the company’s values, mission, and vision. It is important to set them up to build trust in customers and potential partners but also to have a strong team structure within the company. The values, mission, and vision of the company must be brief but explanatory. With a well-established identity, you will get to present yourself better in the market.

Has your company already formed an identity? Tell us in the comments.

Originally published at https://wordstylers.com on September 2, 2021.