Everything needs something that makes it function well. Living beings need sustenance, machinery needs fuels, water turbines need water flow, etc. Aside from capital and resources, the brand’s mission statement drives their operation. To put it simply, a brand mission statement is the answer of “why”. Why did you create this product? Why do you provide this service? Why did you start your business operations?
A brand mission states the business’s purpose, main objectives, and how they plan to deliver it to customers. It’s usually action oriented and presented in a way so readers can catch a glimpse of what the business does and the impact they want to achieve. It should not be stoic, as the brand’s goals may shift as the business grows bigger.
Why The ‘Why’ is Important
As stated before, having a clear brand mission is beneficial in helping potential clients understand your business. But it can also help your business in a number of ways.
If You Have A ’Why’, You Have a Purpose.
A clear mission is directly linked with the purpose of your brand. If you cannot define a strong purpose for your brand, it means your mission is not clear enough. Having a strong purpose would help you stand out from your competition. With so many similar products regulated in the market, the ones that stand out are usually brands whose missions are more valued by consumers.
It Keeps You Authentic
Your ‘why’ is the very foundation of your brand, the core of your business operations. It is important to have a clear answer to your ‘why’—that would make you seem unique compared to other brands. Clinging to that uniqueness is what makes your brand authentic. If you can keep your brand’s authenticity, customers would feel more confident in purchasing your product.
It Keeps You on Track
A well-defined brand mission will keep you on track towards your goal, preventing you from being influenced by external factors that could harm your business. Your ’why’ makes you take better, well-calculated business decisions because you feel your decisions should comply with your mission. Your brand mission already blazed a trail towards your business goals—you just have to make sure every decision you make helps you get there.
How to Find the “Why”
Your brand mission—the ‘why’—is not something that you can find on-the-go. This is something you should have defined before you even start to build your business. However, as important as it is, finding your brand’s core value might be a challenge in itself. There might be tens of thousands of brands that offer similar service or product, each with their own unique values, making your process of defining a unique brand mission quite difficult.
Nevertheless, we have listed several tips on how to find the ‘why’ for your business.
What Drives You?
The journey of finding the ‘why’ starts with finding your ‘what’—what do you want to do with your business? What would your brand be? What kind of product do you want to release to the market? What kind of service would you provide to the clients? What can your business give to the community? What do you want to achieve with your business?
On so many words, you have to find what drives you—the primary goals you want to achieve. Finding answers to all those ’what’ questions is how you define your drive. If you can give clear answers and feel confident with them, congratulations, you just finished the first step of finding your ‘why’.
What About Your Business Do You Love?
Starting a business is hard, not to mention maintaining one. If you do not like what you do, you can easily lose your way with your business. This is why it is important for business owners to find what they are passionate about in their brand. It can be the product, it may be the creation process of the product, it could even be the way the business contributes to the local community.
What Problems Do You Want to Solve for Your Customers?
Doing business is essentially offering a solution for something of concern to your customer. For example, some people open up food stalls for customers to grab fresh food while on the go. Automotive brands sell cars or other vehicles as a solution for customers to commute from home to work. Dentists open up their own dental clinic so patients who want to treat their cavity would not have to go to hospital. So on and so forth.
Your business needs to offer some kind of solution as well. That way, you can also picture your target markets and the niche of said market. Filling a market’s niche will greatly help your business to grow because it has less competition, if any.
Follow Your Gut
As your brand is different from your competitors, so does your ‘why’. It is something that comes from and is the core of your business. In order to achieve your ‘why’, you need to follow your heart—follow what you feel is right. That way, you can focus on doing the right thing in the search of your ‘why’.
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