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YOUR MISSION STATEMENT

Developing your mission statement should be easy - right? After all, a mission statement is nothing more than just a few sentences describing your business. You already know the kind of business you want to run - a restaurant, a compact disc store, a print/copy shop, etc. What more is there to developing a mission statement than just writing down a few words or sentences stating what you plan to do? A lot more.

If a mission statement is to be of any help to you, it must go beyond a mere descriptive statement. A good mission statement clearly defines your business in terms of both the products/service you intend to offer and the markets/customers you intend to serve.  You must carve out a specific niche - a specific business segment in which you intend to compete in order for your business to be a success in the long term. Another secret for long-term success is to ensure that as your business grows, you don't get too far afield from your basic "core" expertise. In short, today in business you have to be very good to survive. You can't be good in everything so you must focus. A well-thought-out mission statement will give you that focus by answering two fundamental questions about your business: What type of products/services will you provide? What type of markets/customers will you serve? Before you can write your mission statement, you have to answer these two questions.  How do you answer I them? By identifying what is called your driving force.

The concept of a "driving force" for a business was first suggested by Benjamin B. Tregoe and John W. Zimmerman in their book, Top Management Strategy. The idea of a driving force is expanded upon in Maximum Performance Management, by Joseph
H. Boyett and Henry P. Conn. Here, because of space limitations we can only discuss the driving force concept briefly, so we suggest you check either of these two books for more information.

Tregoe and Zimmerman define the driving force for a business as "the primary determiner of the scope of future products and markets." Once you select a driving force for your business - and there can be only one driving force - you have established the focus for your business. You select all of the future products/services you offer and markets/customers to be consistent with the driving force you have selected.

In their book, Tregoe and Zimmerman discussed nine possible driving forces. In Maximum Performance Management, seven of these arc described in detail. Here, to give you an idea of how the driving force concept works, we will discuss the three that are most common. If none of these three are appropriate for your business, you can refer to the books we have mentioned for other suggestions.  

The three driving forces we have found to be most common for American businesses are:

1. Body of knowledge
2. Product/service offered
3. Markets/customers served

If you select "body of knowledge" as the driving force for your business, you are saying that what your business offers to the public is knowledge in a specific subject area. You might offer your customers a wide variety of products or services, but they would all have one thing in common. They are all derived from the body of knowledge you possess. Likewise, you might direct your marketing and sales efforts toward a wide variety of customers. Yet they would all have one thing in common. Each would have a need for the body of knowledge you possess and can provide to meet those needs. In short, your body of knowledge dictates both the products/services you offer and the markets/customers you serve.  If a product or type of service doesn't require or isn't derived from your particular body of knowledge, then it isn't right for your company.
If a market or customer doesn't have a need that can be satisfied through the application of your body of knowledge, then that customer isn't right for your business and you wouldn't waste your marketing and sales effort on him or her.

If you select "product/service offered" as your driving force, then you are taking a slightly different approach to defining your business. In this case, what you are bringing to the public is the ability (knowledge/skill, production capability, servicing capability, etc.) to produce a specific type of product or provide a specific type of service. Once you select your initial product or service offering, then all future products or services you offer will be very similar to those you already offer. In respect to the type of customers you serve, they may be quite different (in terms of age, sex. income, etc.), but they will all have one thing in common - a need for the particular type of product/service you offer.

The third, and final, possible driving force we will discuss here is "markets/customers served." Here, the focus of your business is meeting the needs of a particular type of customer (old people, young people, women, men, the rich, the poor, etc.). The kinds of products/services you will offer can vary greatly. The only thing they have in common is that they are something needed by your target customer.

As you read the preceding material, you may have said to yourself, "All of these apply to me." In fact, you may be right. There are usually a number of different ways you could define your business, just as there are thousands of possible businesses. The beauty of the driving force is that it forces you to define your business in just one way. It makes you focus on doing one thing well, which is exactly what you want to do.

To illustrate just how important the selection of your driving force or primary focus is, we will use the example of our own consulting business. At Tarkenton Conn & Company, we decided long ago that we had a body-of-knowledge driving force. In this
case, our body of knowledge was our expertise in implementing innovative management and compensation practices, Everything we do stems from that body of knowledge. We train, consult, lecture, write, and engage in a variety of activities. What they all have in common is that they involve the use of the knowledge we possess. Also, we don't restrict ourselves to a particular type of customer. We work with large businesses and small businesses, in manufacturing and service, with public and private organizations.  The only thing our various customers have in common is that they have a need for the knowledge we possess. Since we are in the "knowledge business," we expend a lot of effort to stay current in our particular area of expertise.

While we define ourselves as being in the knowledge business, we didn't have to do so. For example, we could have adopted a product/service focus. In this case, we might have decided that we wanted to be a training company. In fact, some of our competitors do define themselves as trainers,  If we had adopted a training focus, our efforts would have been directed toward developing and offering training programs on a wide variety of subjects to meet the needs of those who purchase training.

A different focus for our firm might have been on a specific market or customer base. For example, we could have positioned ourselves as consultants to a particular type of industry or business (manufacturing or service, or even more specifically defined such as textiles, utilities, banking). Again, some of our competitors do this.

As yon can see, in defining our business we had a number of choices. So do you.  And you can never know for certain whether you are making the right choice. That can only be determined after the fact. If your business succeeds, then you either were lucky or, in fact, you did make the right choice.  If it fails, then "well, we won't talk about failing. Nevertheless, how do you select among various possible driving forces? You certainly don't want to just flip a coin.  Here are some suggestions.

Your first task in selecting a driving force is to narrow down your options. If you were examining all of the nine that Tregoe and Zimmerman presented in their book or the seven presented in Maximum Performance Management, it is likely that you would immediately discard some as not applying to your business. Even with the three we have mentioned, you may have already discarded one. Regardless, as a first cut, try to get down to no more than two or three possibilities. Then weigh the pros and cons of each.
Take one possible driving force at a time and ask yourself:

1. If we define our business this way, how many competitors will we have? (You want as few as possible.)
2. With this focus, how broad would our potential customer base be? (You want as large a base of potential customers as possible.)
3. How vulnerable would we be to sudden changes in economic, social, or political conditions? (You want to minimize the impact of forces out of your control.)
4. To what extent does this focus build upon knowledge, skill, production capability, research and development, and/or marketing/sales capability that we already have or can easily acquire? (All of these represent potential costs of doing business, and you want to minimize such costs.)
5. Will this focus require substantial new funding or significantly increase our debt structure?

Once you have assessed the pros and cons of several possible driving forces, one should stand out as the clear choice. With the knowledge of your driving force, the actual wording of your mission statement should be a fairly simple task. You just rewrite your driving force in the form of a mission statement.  For example, if you choose body of  knowledge as your driving force, you might write: "The mission of XYZ Company is to acquire and utilize knowledge in the area of - to meet the needs of customers who want to. . ." The exact wording of your mission statement doesn't matter. What does matter is that, in the future, anyone reading your mission statement would have little doubt concerning the types of products/services your business intends to offer and the
markets/customers you intend to serve. The real test for the adequacy of your statement is whether when presented with an idea for a new product or service or a new market to enter you could go to your mission statement and, reading it, know whether that new product or market fits with your business. After all, the real test of your mission statement is not how it is worded, but whether it will serve as a useful guide in helping you make these future decisions.

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