Exercise One:
Create your Mission Statement

Your Mission Statement is for your internal use. It isn't the same as your company's slogans. It will act as your compass for your business anytime you feel lost or off course.

Mission statements fail because they don’t include specific economic objectives, deadlines or they don’t answer the question “why?”. A successful mission statement clarifies these areas. Your mission statement should be easy to remember and action-driven. These are the three things your mission statement needs.

Three economic objectives
Economically simply means numerical. If the business isn’t economically minded, the business will eventually fail. Sometimes as business owners, talking about money or the "bottom line: feels greedy. But being mindful of your economical objectives is the most mindful thing you can do for your customers, your future staff and for yourself. You don’t need to live for the dollar, but you do need the dollar to stay alive.

Example:

"We will conduct 100 new security audits, create security packages for 50 new clients, and retain 250 monthly subscribers..."

A Deadline
Every project has a deadline to aim for. Without deadlines, things wouldn't get accomplished. Giving your objectives a time frame to work within will keep your business moving forward. Even if you miss your deadline, it's better to have one to aim for and miss it by a little bit, then to not have one at all. As Zig Ziglar once said "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." A mission that’s open-ended with no deadline doesn’t inspire action.
Example:
"...We will do all of this by the end of the year..."

Answers the question “Why?”
Explain why your economic objectives and deadline are important. What positive effect do you deeply desire your customer to experience? This is the story and the heart behind your offering. But the key is that it must communicate how it affects your customers.
Example:
"...Because defending your business against cyber attacks

shouldn’t feel overwhelming

When you're finished:
Put your three economic objectives together with your deadline and the answer to your why. So an example of this would look like this:

"We will conduct 100 new security audits, create security packages for 50 new clients, and retain 250 monthly subscribers. by the end of the year, Because defending your business against cyber attacks shouldn’t feel overwhelming"

Spend the next week creating one or more versions of your mission statement and have ready to share at your next coaching session.