Building Your Mission Statement

In this week’s blog, we’re going to look at mission statements for business. These are (usually) short sentences which describe a company’s vision and activities. We’ll look at the benefits of a mission statement and we’ll look at some real companies’ mission statements. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to write a business statement in English.

Before we begin, let’s take a look at our Facebook quiz from 1 January.

Post by English42.

And here are the answers:

a) “To devote our talent and technology to creating superior products and services that contribute to a better global society.” (Samsung)

b) “To be the Ultimate House of Luxury, defining style and creating desire, now and forever.” (Chanel)

c) “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” (Google)

 d) “To create a better everyday life for the many people...offering products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.” (Ikea)

e) “To refresh the world - in mind, body and spirit. To inspire moments of optimism - through our brands and actions. To create value and make a difference everywhere we engage.” (Coca Cola)

All of these mission statements are great for their use of English. Hopefully, you’ll be able to see some of the language features which they all share. In a moment, we’ll look at these, but first we should answer one very important question...

WHY SHOULD WE MAKE A MISSION STATEMENT?

It’s important to remember that, like many other business tools, a mission statement does not have to be used only in a business. It can be very useful for your department, your employees – or even just your own personal life. If it’s used in any of these ways, a mission statement is good for you in two different ways:

Internal benefits: a mission statement can help managers to direct, and it can help give a strong feeling of purpose and reason to the employee, the team and the company in general. Everyone knows what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it.

External benefits: by describing your work, a mission statement can tell the world about your beliefs, and (importantly) it tells customers how you are different from other companies like yours (competitors).

THE ENGLISH OF MISSION STATEMENTS

Step 1: verb + noun

The best business statement is made up of two parts: 20% good English, and 80% original thought. It requires a good English vocabulary, but this is much less important than your ability to describe your (your team’s or your company’s) vision and purpose.

There is one thing we can see in all of the statements: they all start with an infinitive verb. An infinitive verb is a verb with “to”: 

“To create”

       “To be”

 “To organise”

All mission statements, like snowflakes, are different – but they all start with an infinitive verb. This is usually followed by a noun:

“To create a better everyday life” 
 

       “To be the ultimate house of luxury” 

  “To organise the world’s information”

 

Together, the verb and the noun basically describe what the company is or what the company does. This is the first step to writing your mission statement.
[Coca Cola have done something clever: they have chosen a very strong, descriptive verb, to refresh. (This is what something new, different or desired does to you: e.g., a cold, sweet Coke on a hot day)]

Step 2: adjectives

After this, you can improve the statement by adding adjectives if you like. Chanel have already done this: they want to be the ultimate house of luxury. Ikea want to create a better everyday life. This step is optional, but the next step must be done.

Step 3: more nouns You’ll need to add more information, to give more details to yourself, your team or your customers. Usually, you will use nouns for this. For example, Chanel have chosen “style” and “desire”. Like Coca-Cola’s verb “to refresh”, these are very powerful nouns.
 

Step 4: more adjectives

Samsung have chosen the nouns “products”, “services” and “global society”, and they have added some strong adjectives to describe two of these things: “superior services” and “a better global society”. Like step 2, this step is optional. You don't need to add adjectives, but you can. If you do decide to use adjectives, be sure of two steps:

1) don't use too many adjectives - two or three is best.

2) try to use strong, descriptive adjectives. (e.g. Samsung's products aren't just good - they're superior!)

One last tip

If you decide to do a mission statement after this blog then congratulations! However, don't do it alone. Teamwork is essential - "two brains are better than one" - especially because there are two main ingredients to writing a mission statement:

1. a great vocabulary, so you can choose the best verbs, nouns and adjectives;

2. original thought about your company or team.

Be careful, but be adventurous! 

7 Business English acronyms which will make or break your career

The English-speaking business world is absolutely full of acronyms. Each industry has its own - some industries are acronyms! (IT, HR)
Someday, hopefully, there will be time to look at each commonly-used term - but, for now, here are the acronyms which everyone should know. They're common, but confusing; they're complicated, but confidence-building.
Simply put, they're the acronyms which could make or break your career.

 CV 
Let’s start with an easy one. All English-speaking professionals know what a “CV” is (and, hopefully, have a CV).
Fewer professionals know that it stands for “curriculum vitae”, a Latin (Roman) phrase which literally means "course of one's life"; or that in the USA, they say “resumé”.
Even fewer professionals know how to make their CV the best possible CV. Do you? A good CV is the Number One reason your career is successful or a failure. Keep checking Business42 for an upcoming CV guide, but in the meantime, this popular guide is helpful.

BCC: This is an under-used function on emails, and it allows you to send emails to many people without them seeing each other’s email address – useful for marketing/bulk emails. (Usually, you address such emails to yourself and “BCC” all the other people) It stands for “blind carbon copy” and it’s related to the better-known “CC”, or “carbon copy”. This acronym was used during the days of typewriters, when carbon-paper copies of an original document were made and sent to other interested people.

NSFW
This is becoming a popular online acronym and if you see it in work, it’s a red flag – don’t open the link! It means Not Suitable For Work (or Not Safe For Work) and it’s the kind of thing you would not want to be looking at if your team-mates, colleagues or (worst of all) your boss was walking past you while you were sitting at your computer.

FAO
This acronym is usually found in emails/letters and it stands for “For The Attention Of” and then a name – it means the message is for the named person. In other words, if you get it and your name isn’t on it, don’t open it! Forward it onto the correct person.

SMART
This is an incredibly popular and (arguably) useful activity to help you manage your goals. These goals could be your personal or career goals. They could be the goals of a business, a charity or an event. Whatever they are, using SMART helps you to define them – for yourself and for others (investors, colleagues, etc.).
Your goals should be:

• Specific: what exactly are you trying to achieve? An increase in profits? A new skill?
• Measurable: by putting a number on your goal, you’ll know when you have succeeded. For example, your profit increase may be 25%, your skill may be at a certain level (intermediate, advanced, etc.)
• Achievable: are you physically possible of achieving this? Do you have the time, money and resources to get what you want?
• Realistic: Is it actually possible to do this? It’s fine for you to aim to visit Paris before December, but you probably shouldn’t aim to visit Mars by May. (unless, perhaps, you work in NASA)
• Time-bound: What’s your deadline? When you reach the date you set for yourself, you’ll know how much progress you have made.

A couple of SMART goals, then, could be:
=>“To increase profits by 25% before Christmas.”=> “To become proficient in Microsoft Word by January 2015.”=> “To attract 250 people to a May 25^th exhibition of up-and-coming artists.”
(Can you specify the S, M, A, R and T in these goals?)

SWOT
This is an analysis tool which is very similar to SMART, and it’s particularly popular in marketing. It is used to analyse 2 kinds of environments – internal and external – to find their good points and bad points. The internal/external environment could be (for example) a business / its market, a country / its neighbours, or simply a person / her home.

S and W stand for Strengths and Weaknesses . What are we good at? We should take advantage of these strengths and do them more. What are we not so good at? We should either quit these weaknesses or try to improve on them.
O and T stand for Opportunities and Threats. What, in our world, could make us better or happier? We should take advantage of these opportunities. And what in the world around us could hurt us or make us less effective? We should prepare to defend ourselves against these threats.
Find more information on SWOT here.

AIDA
This stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action and is an acronym related to communications. At first, that sounds a little boring, but think about it. When you understand the acronym’s full meaning, you’ll hopefully see that it can be used in most critical situations, from job interviews to advertising campaigns:

Grab (the person’s) attention: Do or say something colourful and exciting to make them stop and take notice of you.   
Create interest: Give the person a little more information to make them interested in you. Create desire: Show the person how you can bring benefit to them (or their organisation), or how you can solve a problem they have.
Take action: This is the other person’s job – they have to contact you again, buy your product, or continue the relationship. But how do they do this? On a website, in a shop, with a phone number? That part is your job.

If you would like to learn more acronyms which you might find in your job (computers, sales, management, etc.), feel free to email us , or send us a message on our Facebook page!