The mission statement has become an accepted necessary evil for all business plans. Though the original intentions of mission statements were valid, at this point they tend to be a nonsensical jumble of buzzwords and jargon that don’t really say anything. The idea behind a mission statement is to describe the fundamental culture of a business. Now, most of them are just another thinly veiled marketing message. If you are planning a startup, don’t bother with the mission statement until you have thoroughly considered how the business will actually run.

It is far more important to start with defining the image and culture of the company you are creating than to agonize over a single sentence to summarize the basis of your venture. Image and culture are the personality and character, respectively, of your business. Your image, or how others see you, is indicated through all of your marketing tools and your interactions with customers and suppliers. Your culture, or how your business gets work done, is developed internally and almost always starts with the folks at the top. In this case, that’s you. How you get work done during the planning and early stages of operations will lay the foundation for how your business runs overall. If you are disorganized, your employees will get the message that disorganization is acceptable. If you treat your employees, suppliers, and customers with respect, that too will become a standard part of your company culture. Of course, every employee that you hire and the way your staff works together will influence the overall culture in some way, but as the owner you do wield the power to guide how the work gets done.

As you are working through your startup planning, keep in mind both the image and the culture you want to develop. Pay attention to the details of your business planning that will affect how others perceive your business and how work gets done. If you still need to write a mission statement for a formal business plan, it will be much easier to sum up the general goals of your organization.

Start here. Go far. LaunchX.com