Do you have a vision for your company? Then get to work on the mission right away. In the second part of our blog series on brand development, we'll show you how to develop your own company mission.
Mission impossible? Not at all! Defining your company mission is possible - and necessary. It sharpens the image of your brand, gives you orientation to achieve your vision and lays the foundation for the possibility of lasting success.
But what exactly is a mission? It is the why of your brand. Why did you bring it onto the market? Why do you do what you do? Why should customers buy or book with you? Why should employees apply to work for you?
To make it easy for you and because all definitions on the subject are less catchy than a concrete example, we will show you how we at TutKit.com have developed our own mission. Perhaps a model for your own approach ...
Development of a company mission using the example of TutKit.com
Allow me? We are TutKit.com. We offer our customers access to thousands of digital assets such as design templates, illustrations and presets. They can also expand their knowledge of photography, image editing, online marketing and Office, among other things, with German-language tutorials.
Now you know what we do. But why are we doing this?
In 2019, we started to reposition ourselves. We wanted to be clear about who we are and what we stand for, who our target group is and why they should be enthusiastic about what we offer. One of our employees, Stefan Riedl, quickly took this project into his own hands and gave the entire team a presentation on the topic of our company mission to get them in the mood.
He gave us 7 tips for developing a mission , and to make it even easier to get it into our heads, he garnished each tip with a crisp example of a well-known company - the decisive input for our further approach, which we naturally don't want to withhold from you:
7 tips for the path to the company mission
- Be brief and say it in one sentence:
We have always focused on quality at the best price.
Aldi South - Focus your topic and avoid enumerations:
Maintaining international peace and security.
United Nations - Tell your story in a way that creates a narrative in the reader's mind:
Imagine a world in which every single person has a free share in the totality of knowledge. That is our goal.
Wikipedia - Use simple and positive terms that everyone understands:
Enable business people to grow.
XING - Use the Golden Circle to get to the why of your brand:
Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.
Facebook - Make the difference:
To be the ultimate luxury house that defines style and inspires desire, now and for all time.
Chanel - Find the right balance between concrete and open:
Our goal is to organize the world's information and make it accessible and usable for everyone at all times.
Google
Want more examples?
- We help people save money so they can live better.
Walmart - We develop chemistry for a sustainable future.
BASF - Providing a global trading platform where virtually anyone can trade virtually anything.
Ebay - Evolving the Internet and providing designers and developers with the best tools and services in the world.
Adobe
Ideas for the mission - everyone is needed
After these examples from the world of corporate giants, Stefan served up some initial suggestions for our own corporate mission:
- Digital literacy for everyone - that's what TutKit.com is for.
- Everyone benefits from the opportunities of digitalization. That is our mission.
- Success course(s) for everyone: With our content, everyone benefits from the opportunities of digitalization.
- If every individual benefits from the opportunities of digitalization in their career and entrepreneurship, we will have fulfilled our mission.
- Imagine a world in which the knowledge of digital transformation is available to every entrepreneur and employee at all times. That is our goal.
- In an increasingly digital working world, TutKit.com enables everyone to expand their knowledge in order to pursue their personal and entrepreneurial mission. That is our goal.
- TutKit.com - the place where everyone can develop their digital skills to help shape the entrepreneurial world today and in the future.
The proposals were immediately the subject of lively discussion, and it became clear what we were interested in - and what not. Equipped with this comprehensive briefing on the company mission, Stefan sent us off to develop our own ideas. Everyone wrote down their personal variants, which we voted on democratically. The result:
Our mission: with us, people strengthen their digital skills to efficiently achieve the goals of their professional and entrepreneurial mission.
Small book recommendation: Incidentally, a very interesting book on this topic showed us just how important storytelling is for finding your own mission: "Tell me! How to convince with storytelling" by Thomas Pyczak.
Step by step to the company mission
To summarize once again - this is how we effectively arrived at our own company mission. See if the process is suitable for your situation:
- Responsibility & people involved: designate one person in the team or company who is responsible for developing your mission. Also determine who else should take part in the process.
- Briefing with tips and examples: Get in the mood for the topic in an initial meeting. The person responsible should present important key points for the development of a company mission and give handy examples. Finally, rough suggestions for your own mission can be given to the group - as inspiration and for initial discussion.
- Develop proposals: All participants write down their own mission statements.
- Discussion and voting: The suggestions made by everyone can be discussed again if necessary. We have shortened the process at this point and conducted a direct vote using a points system.
The time is ripe for your own company mission
You will see that once you have found your company mission , it is much easier to follow your vision. Only if you and your team have what your brand stands for in your head and heart on a daily basis can you achieve your goals without any detours. Of course, your company's values are inextricably linked to this. You can read more about this in part 3 of our blog series.