The words they want to hear

Have you ever bought something because of a mission statement?

Recently, an older post on The Essential Message blog caught my attention. In it, Michel Neray points out that no one has ever bought anything because of a mission statement. And as someone who has massaged and crafted mission statements, messages and taglines (and who has sat through more visioning meetings than I care to remember), I relate to what he's saying.

So many of these statements are bloated, meaningless and filled with the words we think our customers want to hear. Or the words that our consultants tell us we must use. You've probably heard these: "You have to think boldly. Big picture. Find the words that capture what we are all about as an organization." Usually, there are all sorts of fun exercises to move the process along.

And yes, some of that is valuable advice. I'm also a big fan of creative exercises. Anything that gets your brain firing from a slightly different direction is going to serve you.

But it's all so internally focused. Do our clients and customers really care if we are thinking big? If we have captured what makes our company tick in a few words that sound pretty good together? Do they care that all 12 people around the table finally found the statement they could all live with?

I think we all know the answers.

The thing is, I actually have bought products and services because of a mission statement. And because of a tagline. My favorite example is Kashi brand cereals. I became a fan of Kashi after being intrigued by these six little words: Seven whole grains on a mission.

What's the mission? To provide me with healthy and tasty snacks and breakfasts. How's that going to happen? By combining seven whole grains together in my cereal. That's really all I needed to know to make the purchase. It know why they're different and what that's going to do for me. And it's repeated often enough that it sticks in my head.

So maybe you're not a cereal fan. And maybe you don't even like that tagline. But sometimes, it really can be that simple.

For example, the company who tells me that their mission is to make me more successful is going to get my attention.

I used to work for a firm that used this not very original yet effective mission statement. And you know what? They grew quickly because that was a very clear message that resonated with the company leaders who purchased their services and products. It was direct, simple and results-oriented.

Too often, we get lost in being clever or in using the words we think people want to hear. We think we need to sound more formal. We think we need to follow formulas. We think we need to "make it sound good". We think we need to be different.

We think everyone from the receptionist to the board needs to love these words...and we leave the people who buy from us in the dust.

Whether it's your tagline or a new web site or the business development materials you pass on to prospects, the question is the same: are you actually talking to your audience? Or is this just an internal exercise?