Photo Credits: Mark Rutter

I spent a good portion of last weekend doing some research on vision and mission statements. The difference had never been very clear to me, but somehow I had always thought of them as crucial exercises for companies and individuals who want to be successful.

What I learned is that the “mission” is rooted in the present, or the day to day, while the “vision” is anchored in the future.

A mission statement explains what is a company’s purpose or “claim to fame”. A vision statement, on the other hand, articulates a preferred version of the future: where a company wants to get as a consequence of following its mission.

Most companies keep their vision to themselves but are usually pretty open with their mission statements. Therefore, I started going through the mission statements of Fortune 500 companies and noticed that while some companies are very good at developing mission statements, most do a terrible job.

Bad Mission Statements

I found bad mission statements to have one or more of the following characteristics:

Stating the obvious:

“Our mission is to earn the trust and loyalty of our customers, business partners, and neighborhoods every day”, or “We provide outstanding products and unsurpassed service that, together, deliver premium value to our customers”.

Speaking in corporate cliches:

“We do business each day with absolute integrity, honesty and passion, partnering as a team to meet our consumers’ needs”.

Try to appear politically correct:

“We are committed to truly making a difference through the preservation of the earth’s resources and the betterment of our communities” (you would never guess that this company sells office supplies).

Internally-focused (or shareholder-focused) instead of customer-focused:

“To maximize shareholder value by enhancing financial performance and providing long-term profitable growth.”

All of the above are actual mission statements of Fortune 500 companies.

Good Mission Statements

On the other hand, I found that good mission statements are usually:

1. Short and memorable
2. Very specific (no generalities)
3. Expressed in simple language (no cliches or corporate speak)
4. Customer-focused
5. Easily understood by employees and customers alike

These are some examples of good mission statements (with the company name in parenthesis):

• “We will be the easiest pharmacy retailer for customers to use”. (CVS)
• “We fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling”. (Harley Davidson)
• “We help people save money so they can live better”. (Walmart)
• “We bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world”. (Nike)
• “To build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” (Amazon)
• “To provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything.” (Ebay)
• “Our Goal is to provide the best claim service in the industry”. (Auto-Owners Insurance)

A good mission statement sets clear expectations for customers, focuses employees and provides a yardstick against which to measure the soundness of a business strategy.

Personal mission statements

A personal mission statement helps you make sure that the jobs and projects you take match your skills, interests, goals and values. A carefully crafted mission statement can help you avoid costly career mistakes.

To make your mission statement compelling don’t just ask yourself the usual questions: what do I do, for whom and what is the benefit?

Think bigger.

Ask yourself: what is my way of improving the world I live in? What is my platform? What is my message to the world? That is likely to produce a more powerful mission statement that you can embrace and feel excited about.

I’ve crafted my mission statement to be: “To empower business professionals through personal branding, so that they can live happy, successful lives”.

In the future, I may change it and refine it a little bit. For example, I could chose to focus on business professionals from a particular industry, or on a more specific aspect of a successful life, like improving work-life balance.

As for the “vision thing”, it is slightly more complicated and I haven’t figured it out completely yet, but it might be something along the lines of making a positive impact in the lives of every person I meet.

So, to wrap it up, here are my own, simple definitions of “mission” and “vision”:

Mission is what you do best every day. Vision is what gets you out of bed every day.

What’s your take?
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Being a car enthusiast, I’ve been following the automobile industry bailout proceedings very closely. At the same time, I’ve been thinking about those events, and what led to them in the context of branding.

Here are five branding lessons we can take away from the automobile industry meltdown:

Your brand has to stand for something

What is the difference between a Ford and a Mercury? For the longest time, Mercury vehicles have been Fords with a different badge. In the name of “operational efficiencies” both brands are now almost the same thing.

If you can’t tell what a brand stands for, what makes it different, and what target market it is addressing, that brand probably shouldn’t exist.

Branding signals can change, but not too much

If you put together a 1980’s and a 2008 Mercedes Benz, you could immediately tell that they’re both a Mercedes, because their styling cues have remained consistent over time.

Photo Credits: Dave 7

The Big Three, instead, have tended to change their cars radically, to the point that many of them don’t share the same DNA with their earlier year models. If you put together a 1980 and a 2008 Chevy Malibu you’re going to have a hard time telling that they’re the same brand.

Think about this when you’re about to change anything about your brand (your logo, your colors, your website’s look and feel, etc.). The idea is to refresh the look of your brand without diluting its visual identity.

Beware of “leveraging” your brand where it shouldn’t be leveraged

Sometimes companies squander hard earned brand equity in the name of short term profits. Not so long ago, Jeep placed its legendary badge on the Compass, a car-based impostor that doesn’t share the brand’s core attributes (results so far have been dismal).

Also, a few years ago, GM slapped the beloved Impala moniker to an uninspiring front wheel drive mid-size sedan destined to the car rental lots.

There is a good way and a bad way to leverage a brand. Before attempting to do so, make sure that the new product or service you want to offer shares your core brand attributes.

Your product must match your brand promise

You’ve probably heard this slogan before: Pontiac: We Build Excitement! However, how can you forget that Pontiac is the brand that brought us the heinous and short lived Aztec, probably the least exciting vehicle built in the last 50 years?

If you say one thing and you do another, your customers are going to call you out on it and your brand will lose credibility.

Think about it: if you really wanted excitement, what would you buy: a Pontiac or a BMW?

A strong personal brand requires consistent behavior

CEOs of the Big Three arrived for the first week of hearings in their private luxury jets . After getting rightfully scolded by the media, they changed their tune for the second round of talks. Rick Wagoner, of GM, arrived in a Chevy Volt prototype, carpooling with a couple of senators.

What was he thinking? Not even the average Joe would fall for that kind of obvious pandering…

Never make that mistake with your personal brand. Your credibility and your reputation are your most precious assets. Protect them carefully by being principled and consistent. In this day and age, authenticity is the new professional, and you need more than a nice suit and a carefully orchestrated PR stunt to earn respect.