What is your small business’s guiding star for 2025?
Mission and vision statements are regularly overlooked by businesses big and small, but they are key to success.
In this episode of the Small Owned Business (S.O.B.) Marketing podcast we discuss mission and vision statements, what they are, and why they are important for small business success.
Now is the perfect time to create a mission and vision for your small business! And if you need help creating one, don’t hesitate to reach out to us, or better yet - join our S.O.B. Community! There you can get our advice, as well as advice from other small business owners on the same journey.
Join our monthly membership 𝐒.𝐎.𝐁 (𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬) 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲: https://www.skool.com/sob
PLEASE REMEMBER TO FOLLOW AND LEAVE A 5 STAR REVIEW!
_________________
Chapters:
00:00 Thank You For Listening & Please Leave a Review
03:30 Understanding Mission Statements
17:27 Understanding Vision Statements
20:39 Practicality of Mission and Vision
25:44 TLDL: Mission and Vision Statements synopsis
_________________
𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓:
𝐒.𝐎.𝐁 (𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬) 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲: https://www.skool.com/sob
_________________
If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be helpful! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://sobmarketing.com
This podcast is brought to you by THE SEASONED MARKETER. For more free marketing resources, follow us here:
**Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSeasonedMarketer
**Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theseasonedmarketer
**Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theseasonedmarketer
COLLABORATION REQUESTS TO: vivian@TheSeasonedMarketer.com
Vivian: Today, we are talking about something that may seem a little old fashioned to small business owners, but we want to remind you guys of how important it is. That is mission and vision statements. If you guys don't know, Chelsea and I are both marketing professionals. We both went to the same university and studied the same major. So when you were coming up in college, what was the conversation in marketing school about mission and vision statements? Do you remember that?
Chelsea: Yes, for the most part I remember it being very, very important. Your mission and vision statements were the number one thing you had to have as a business. If you didn't have anything else, you needed to have those two statements.
Vivian: Yeah, and let me tell you guys something that I thought was really interesting. You know, there is always the education component of the industry that you're going into. So for example, let's say you're a physical therapist, you go to school for that. I'm sure that in school, they teach you things that then when you get out in the real world, you're like, why did we spend any time on that, it's not super applicable? Mission and vision statements from a marketing perspective have always been super applicable, but I was disappointed when I entered the real world in how many small businesses I encountered and big businesses that did not take the time to stay up to date with this or to even do this. I think if they were to do it, it would have fixed or resolved a lot of the issues that they were having in the organization.
Chelsea: I have a memory of when I was graduating my senior year, we had to do a senior project. Our project was to rebrand a local small business that was struggling. They reached out to us and said, hey, we need help. Can you create a marketing plan? Anything's on the table. One of the things they didn't have was a good mission and vision. So we went in, and my group - because it was in different groups - my group completely rebranded, gave them a mission and a vision, gave them this whole marketing plan. They didn't do any of the suggestions they were given, not by my group, not by any group. They kind of took all of our presentations and all of our papers and all of our booklets because you know it's a senior thesis so you have to write this entire marketing plan out. So they got six different marketing plans and they kind of went, "all of this sounds like a lot of work and I don't want to do any of this. We're just going to continue doing what we're doing." This business had already gone bankrupt once.
Vivian: Wow. Here's the thing, from your perspective in that particular group, you guys understood that there was a lot of value in creating a mission and vision statement. Y'all, I'm telling you right now, I get it. When I say it out loud, I know some of you may be sitting there rolling your eyes, maybe saying, I need to listen to another podcast episode because it's not super valuable, but what we hope to do by the end of this conversation is have you convinced that having a solid grasp on a vision and a mission is actually going to move the needle forward in your small business and knowing the difference between the two is key. All right. So Chelsea, let's start the conversation there. What is a mission statement?
Chelsea: Okay. So your mission statement and your mission as a small business is going to define the primary purpose of your small business. What are you trying to do as a small business? What are you currently doing? What are your objectives and what is your purpose?
So for example, Vivian and I just recently went through our mission and vision. We tweaked it. Our mission statement is "to provide resources to small business owners that grow their confidence in managing their marketing in-house". So that is what we're currently doing. That is the goals, the objectives, our purpose.
Vivian: So Chelsea, let's deconstruct that a little bit to show people why that can have such an effect on the day-to-day operations in our decision making. Let's say you're a small business owner and you don't have a mission statement. I sell these types of products and that's it. We could have done the same thing, but one of the things that we were talking about for 2025 is that this mission statement is a guiding star. Okay, so when we have multiple options on the table. We don't know which decision to make or which way to go. We should be able to refer back to our guiding star to say, does this align, and are we fitting in with what we set out to do, the reason we are even spending time trying to build this business.
Chelsea, what other key components do you see in our mission statement?
Chelsea: For one, "provide resources to small business owners".
If we are trying to decide if we're going to do something, we look back at that mission statement and say, OK, well, is this a resource that a small business owner would actually want?
Vivian: Right. Does our target audience, the people that we are here to serve, small businesses, do they even need or want what we're putting out there? If the answer is no, we don't need to waste our time, right? The other part to me that stands out is the "that grow their confidence in managing their marketing in-house". That says a couple different things to me. For one, it says, we don't want to do your marketing for you. So therefore, it kind of shapes the products and the services that we sell, right? Is this empowering somebody to continue to do their marketing? We're not out here saying, let us do all this stuff for you. We're saying, are we able to teach them how to do this on their own because we know that's going to be more impactful.
The other part of that is "grow their confidence in their marketing". That helps us to identify the type of content that we create. If we are creating reels or videos, does this give somebody at the end of them watching us for 60 seconds? Do they say, wow, I learned something new and now I feel more confident in the realm of marketing. Perhaps I didn't know that or perhaps now I feel more knowledgeable about it. So these are all the things that for us, does our target audience want it? We say who our target audience is. We say, is it something that they want? We say, how are we approaching this? We want to give them something. We want to give them confidence. And then it gives us a means to it. We want to be sure that we empower them to do it on their own, right? Exactly. This is our new mission statement.
Chelsea: This is our mission statement because I am here with Vivian. The mission statement Vivian had when she was The Seasoned Marketer on her own is very different from what it is now.
Vivian: Yeah. I think when I started the whole thing, it was just to provide marketing resources to small business owners. It was that simple. I didn't have to think much further than that because, like you said, it was a one man operation. Also, my business wasn't fully fledged out in my head. I don't know if you, as a small business owner, maybe feel this way, but as you know more about your target audience, as you get those reps. You have to get reps in before you start to feel like "I finally kind of feel like I know which way I want to steer myself and where my business fits". It's 100 % okay to do that. I get it. Everyone wants the polished version of stuff, but the truth is that a business is its own person. That's how we need to treat it. I need to respect the business that I've made. I need to be sure that I'm giving it attention. I need to be sure that I'm very strategic in how I want to navigate this. So a mission statement does help you with that. I'm hoping that you're starting to see as we're talking through this, how that can be extremely useful. If you don't have a mission statement yet, we encourage you that in 2025 you sit down and you give some serious thought to this because it can help you with a lot of the decision making and a lot of the maybe service expansion or product expansion that you want to do in the future.
Chelsea: I'm going to take it a step further. If you already have a mission statement, go back and look at it. Is that still your mission? Is that what you're still doing? You don't have to say, I've strayed away from my mission, let me get back in line. No. Say, you know what? My business has grown and has evolved. It's changed. I'm going to change my mission because I like where I am right now, and I want my mission to reflect what I'm trying to do with my small business.
Vivian: I will say, I have homework as a business owner because whenever we did say, this is going to be our mission, our vision statement. I now have to go in and I have to update our website. I haven't done that yet. I know I need to, because through our website, it should be a reflection of what our new mission and vision statement are. So I'm well aware of it and probably within the next two weeks, I need to get on that and be sure that our online presence reflects that. Even something as simple as, we need to go in and just kind of update our social profiles to reflect that, right? So maybe on our Facebook page in the description, I need to go update that on our Instagram description, maybe I need to update that.
So it does require like you said, Chelsea, if your business has grown, you're reflecting back, you're updating a mission statement, if you're getting more granular with it, and now just be sure that you're going back and you're checking all of that front-facing to the consumer stuff that could make a difference in the way you appear and if that aligns with what you're telling them.
Chelsea: I love that.
Well, Vivian, do you want to then explain what a vision statement is?
Vivian: All right, so remember we said that mission is your guiding light. It is the stuff that is going to help you get granular on what you're doing now. Vision is your future. I like to call it the big pie in the sky, okay? When Chelsea and I set out to redo our vision statement, I told her I kind of wanted it to be, I don't want to say ridiculous, it's not ridiculous, but I wanted it to be big. Because I do think that a vision is something that you're thinking, "if I could have anything in this world" or "what my legacy or my impact could be, what would that look like for my business"? Right. So Chelsea, what did we agree is our new vision statement?
Chelsea: Sure, so our new vision statement is to create opportunities for every S.O.B. (small owned business) to prosper. That's the vision.
Vivian: Yeah. Listen, you might be thinking, well, that's just very oversimplified. Yeah. It is. When you kind of stop to think about it, our small business, what impact or legacy do we want to leave? It's that, that we create an opportunity for every small business to be successful. To actually be in business.
Y'all, I hate to tell you. Every time I read one of those darn statistics about how many businesses go out of business in the first three years, the first five years, the first 10 years, it makes my head want to explode because I'm like, if Chelsea and I can do anything to just keep one business actually profitable then our mission is done. I could just be they just don't know what they don't know, right? So our resources, which Chelsea said earlier about our mission, the stuff we provide is all going to help to do that.
Chelsea: There are two ways you can think about this. You can think, mission is now and vision is the future. Or you could think vision is what we want to accomplish, a future desired state. It's an ultimate goal and your mission is how we're going to accomplish that.
Vivian: Right. So vision could be grandiose. Then mission is the, what am I on the daily going to do about delivering on that vision? How am I going to make that big grandiose gesture idea an actual reality? It's going to be through chipping away slowly at this.
Chelsea: So how are we going to create opportunities for every SOB to prosper? We're going to do that by providing resources to small business owners that grow their confidence managing their marketing in-house. Wow, we're so good at marketing.
Vivian: I love it.
What I hope the big takeaway is here is that, I know a lot of people know about mission and vision statements. Maybe they don't know how to go about writing them, but they know that they have a place in businesses because in a marketing plan, they always tell you to write a mission and vision statement.
The thing is, I want to tell you that in practicality, it actually is extremely useful y'all. I've seen it on both ends. I've seen businesses, not going to name names, that don't have a mission and vision. When I tell you it's like herding cats. If you want to give your team a gift, I don't care how big the team is. They could be one person, they could be 200 people. If you want to give them a gift, give them the gift of knowing what they are doing for you. It is easier for me to show up to work for you if I understand what your purpose is and if I see day to day, that the decisions you are making and the stuff that we are doing actually aligns with that purpose. Then I want to be a part of your company. I want to be a part of your business, of the organization because it makes me feel good to see it coming to fruition.
And I know I'm a part of that, but if you don't have a mission or a vision and people are just coming in, it becomes this whole thing of, you're not all looking in the same direction. It gets very hard. That's where you start to get a lot of these little things where people are arguing about stuff and this and that. It's because then their personal stuff takes over what the big idea or vision of the company is.
Chelsea: Well, and it's also going to help with decision making not just for your employees, but also for yourself, as the small business owner. We were talking about this earlier. Do we want to do this? Well, does it align with our mission? If it doesn't, then that's not an opportunity we want to take on.
Vivian: Yeah. I've been in the workforce a long time. I'm not going to age myself, even though I did just have a birthday, but having been in the workforce a long time, one of the best examples or conversations that I ever had with a CEO at the time who he was just precious to me. He told me, I want to give you authority to be able to make decisions on your own. He said, as long as your decision is always aligned with the mission of this company or the vision of this company, I'm going to be more understanding of if you've made a mistake. As long as you were trying to do the right thing. If I were to go out on my own and for whatever reason, I had to make the decision quick. We'll use as an example a patient experience in health care. If a patient's irate and you're trying to, as your role in the organization, you're trying to help them. Let's say you make a decision, you're like, here's the game plan we're going to do for you. If maybe you go back and it doesn't exactly align with what your superior would have done, and they're like that probably wasn't the right thing. But you say, here was my thought process was to do this and this because I wanted to deliver on what the company's about.
He told me, as long as you are doing what is in the best interest of what we're aligned to do as a company, then I can't really get onto you about stuff.
Vivian: The last part of it to Chelsea and one of the biggest reasons that I think a mission and vision statement is so important to a small business is that it really does help with the marketing. Okay. You know this better than anyone Chelsea, cause you're doing social media stuff day in and day out.
It is so much easier to craft content, create videos, put information out there. You know, if you guys are doing commercials, whatever it is, it's easier to craft that messaging when you have a clear perspective on what your mission is, right?
Chelsea: There are other parts of social media marketing and let's not get into the nitty gritty about it because that's not what this episode is about. But yes, everything that you do should relate back to your mission and your vision is. So your marketing is going to be that much easier because you have a very clear understanding of what you're trying to do.
Okay, y'all, let's go ahead and do the TLDL, too long didn't listen. If you are here because you clicked on the chapter, because you don't have time to listen to this entire episode, that's totally fine. When you get the chance, go back and listen to our full conversation. It will help make this a little more understandable. Sometimes mission and vision can be confusing.
Today we talked about how important it is to have a mission and vision statement as a small business owner. Your vision statement is going to be the future. It's your pie in the sky statement, what you want to achieve in a perfect world. Your mission is now, it's how you are going to reach your vision. It is like your guiding star, guiding light.
Why do you want a mission and vision statement? For one, it's going to give you purpose. It's going to help you understand your small business better. It's going to help with decision making not only for you, but also your employees, if you have any. Also, if you already have a mission and vision, you might want to go back and revisit them because businesses change. Maybe you've grown out of those statements.
And of course, it's going to help with your marketing and help you make better commercials, ads. It's just going to help you with your marketing altogether.
Vivian: And hey, if you guys are thinking there's no way I'm to be able to come up with my own mission and vision statement, join our SOB community. Okay, y'all. We actually do weekly zoom calls for an hour on there where we have community members come in. They can ask any questions that they want about their small business. We can help you craft a mission and vision statement for your business. If that's something that you are needing. So $50 a month.
And hey, if you guys are thinking there's no way I'm going able to come up with my own mission and mission statement, join our entry into the community. It's okay, y'all. We actually do the pleasing calls for an hour on there. We have community members who can ask any questions that they've got about their small business. We can help you craft a mission and mission statement for your business if that's something that you are needing. So $50 a month you get access to our portal and all of the videos and information. Nice little conversation hub there where you can ask questions, post comments, all that good stuff. But we encourage you to go take a look at that skool.com/sob.
Chelsea Y'all, go be the best S.O.B. you can be!
Related Episodes
SEO is Changing in 2025 - Here's What Small Businesses Need to Know
Keyword stuffing is soooo 2000 and LATE! (All the millennials got that reference.) With the rise in AI, the introduction and growth of SGE, and changes to search engine algorithms (we’re looking at you Google), SEO is no longer as simple as keywords or bust. In this week’s episode of the S.O.B.. (Sm...
Marketing Trends for 2025 Small Business Owners NEED to Hear
Happy New Year S.O.B.s! 🎉 This week we are discussing marketing trends we suspect will become big in 2025. If your resolution for 2025 is to take your marketing to the next level then this episode is for you. From social commerce to experiential shopping - join us as we do a deep dive into each mar...
The Marketing Game: Our Parents Guess Our Marketing Adventures
It’s a holiday special on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast! This week, we’re mixing things up with some family fun. We invited our parents to join the show for a hilarious trip down marketing memory lane. We shared some of our funniest, most cringe-worthy marketing stories from ov...