Tue 16 Sep 2008
Focus Through Mission Statements
Posted by Megan Dorn under Entrepreneurship, Small Business
I read a great post the other day on The Entrepreneurial Mind about maintaining focus. Many small business owners, particularly newer ones, tend to be fickle and impulsive. They see a business opportunity and they’re compelled to pursue it, not really taking into account how it fits into the bigger picture of their businesses. In his post, Dr. Jeff Cornwall offers a solution–mission statements.
“A good mission is a short statement that clearly defines what we do (our product or service), whom we do it for (our market) and how we do it (our business model, such as retail, manufacturing, Web-based etc.),” he writes.
Sure mission statements are important for communicating the basics of your business to others, but by writing and memorizing their mission statement, small business owners can better maintain their focus. According to Cornwall, mission statements are the single most important tool to help you get focused. So if you don’t already have one, get one, and always keep it in the back of your mind.
