Your company’s vision and mission statements play an important part in making your business a success. Not only do these two statements inspire your employees and bring in customers, but they are also essential parts of your business plan. Your vision and mission statements set the entire tone for your business plan and play a vital role in getting investors interested in reading the rest of your plan.

When you sit down to write your mission and vision statements, don’t treat them like a quick task that you can simply check off your to-do list. Instead, look at them as important pieces of your company that will be a guide for you and your employees for years to come. These statements define what your company is all about and what direction you envision your company heading in the future. These are statements that you need to take the time to think about and make sure you get right. To ensure you create strong vision and mission statements, there are a few common mistakes you will want to avoid.

Being a Clone

Your business is unique, so your vision and mission statements should also be unique. The vision and mission that you describe should stand apart from those of other companies, and consumers should be able to easily identify you based on these statements. Your mission and vision statements should ultimately capture what makes your company unique. They will also ultimately guide how you act toward your customers, according to Tara Landes, writer for Bellrock Benchmarking, Inc. Creating a mission or vision statement that is vague, or that could be applied to any one of your competitors’ businesses, means it’s time to head back to the drawing board.

Going it Alone

Unless you are the sole employee of the business, you want to include the key players in developing the vision and mission statements for your business. It is these people who will be responsible for spreading this information both internally and externally. For this to work, these employees need to be included in the process. Once you have your vision and mission statements written, you can have these key players help you test them out to determine if they are strong enough. Share these statements with others and see how they react to them. If they show interest and get excited about your company and strategy, you’re good to go; if not, you’ll want to spend more time improving them.

Creating an Epic Novel

Your mission and vision statements should be short and to the point. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is creating a long-winded statement that takes forever to read. If you lose your audience before they can get through your statements, you might as well give up on your dreams of owning your own business. Choose words that are straightforward and avoid adding fluff to either statement. Get rid of any unnecessary wording and make sure you are using the simplest words possible.

When it comes to the type of business you want to start, it is important to set the tone early. One way to accomplish this is to craft a strong statement that clearly defines what your company is and what it is setting out to accomplish. To have the best chance of creating a strong vision and mission statement it is important to identify goals that will help move your company forward, according to Josh Patrick, contributor for Stage 2 Planning Partners. With the right goals in place, creating a strong vision and mission statement will be easy and will help your company grow into the future.