Franziska: Hi and welcome back to Basic Bananas TV. In this episode, I’d love to answer a question that we get asked a lot here at Basic Bananas and that is really the confusion and really knowing what is the difference between vision and mission and what do I need to do with this stuff and does it really matter? I’m going to share with you something that I believe in how you can … That we are using with all of our businesses and our members, how you can use this stuff and that is a purpose statement.
Let me just briefly share with you first why it’s important. Having a purpose statement really creates the core, the essence of your business. Everything that you’re doing, you’re marketing pieces and really all the decisions that you make are based on this purpose statement. They come out, they stem from this purpose statement that you have for your business. How do you craft that? Let me quickly share with you what the difference is between a vision and a mission and then how you can blend them.
Your vision, your business vision is really your big goals. What are your big goals in your business? What do you want to achieve? Why are you doing this? It’s usually if you look into the future, what do you want to have achieved in 5, 10 or whatever years and that is usually the vision so why are you doing this? What’s the purpose? Then your mission is usually how do you get there? Your vision is your goal and then your mission is how do you get there? A vision might be our vision is to make sure we have a healthy community in the world if it’s a fitness business for example.
How do we get there? We do this by providing the most effective personal training solutions for example. What’s the goal? The goal is to have a healthy world. How do we do this? By providing the personal training offers solutions packages. Now what you can do to make this a purpose statement and to make it short and snappy and attractive and to not get too confused about the vision and the mission, you can blend that. You can blend those things and you just make 1 statement.
The best way to do this is to brainstorm. Brainstorm first why are you doing this, why are you in business for, why is this important? Then brainstorm how you do it. How are you getting to your goal? Then maybe you can blend them. Then you can maybe … It’s not a quick task. Usually it takes a little bit of time to do this but then you can blend the 2 and create a really attractive purpose statement and you know what? I’m going to share some with you. I printed some out for you that I can share that are really some businesses that are really doing a good job when it comes to a purpose statement or it’s also a vision statement you can call it what you like. I call it the purpose statement.
Zappos for example, an online retailer, they say, “To provide the best customer service possible” and that really is at the core of their business. The customer service that they provide is at the core of their business. Everything that they do is based on that and that’s why they’re very successful. We also have Ikea, the Swedish furniture shop. They say, “Our vision is to create a better every day life for the many people.” For them, again, their purpose statement or vision statement it’s not about furniture. They don’t sell furniture. They sell a better life and that’s what makes them successful. It’s a focus on providing a better life. It’s not about the furniture.
Same thing with Nike. Nike shoes. To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world and a lot of their stuff what they’re doing in terms of marketing and their campaigns is always based on inspiration. If you look at any of their videos even, it’s hardly ever about the shoe. It’s not about, “Hey this shoe is made from these materials or blah blah blah” the specifics. It’s usually inspiring people. It’s usually saying stuff like, “You can do this. I can do this. You can do this.” It’s inspiring people to go out there and go running for example with the Nike shoes.
Another one is Patagonia. Patagonia is very much focused on being a sustainable and environmental friendly label and so what their purpose statement says is, “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire, and implement solutions to the environment crisis.” Again, their purpose statement is very much about having an impact, having a positive impact with their product, with what they’re doing so again these are just actually one last one. The Starbucks one is because it’s not about coffee. Starbucks is hugely successful coffee shop brand and what they say … They don’t say, “We have amazing coffee” they say, “To inspire and nurture the human spirit.” It’s Starbucks but that’s what their purpose statement is.
One person, one cup, and one neighbourhood at a time. Again now it’s your turn really to think about how can we make our purpose statement a little bit more attractive? How can we make the core of our business a bit more powerful? It takes a bit of time to work on this but I would love to actually know once you’re working on this, I would love for you to share it with us. You can email us or you can post it below the video but I would love to hear about your purpose statement. I always get inspired by the many businesses that we have watching this show and also how they do things, how they implement the tips that we give them. We’d love to hear from you.
