Tell Me About Your Company … In 6 Words Or Less!

Mission statements are pure bulls@#t!

They’re actually only for complete corporate morons, who couldn’t tell their asses from a hole in the ground. Don’t be like one of these blithering idiots … use a mantra to grow your company instead! Really … if your start-up business isn’t standing out it’s already fading away, and all that dough you’re throwing into advertising will be lost if its messages aren’t unique, concise and compelling. So you better be simplifying them with great content that people will always want more of. Here’s a news flash: big business has the cash to pay expensive ad agencies top dollar to do this for them, but you don’t … so save the cash and create a much more personal mantra that pops instead … one that is rich with relevance, proof and value for your customers.

Your mantra should be way more than just a clever tagline or an expensive branding statement … it must bring clarity, power and consistency to all your marketing communications. It’s second purpose is to help employees truly understand what the hell their company is all about (besides giving them a paycheck each week, of course) … it must bring meaning into their lives. The ultimate test for any mantra is this: can your lowest common denominator/peon (I know, this is so mean to say … but forget about that for now) tell you what it means? If they can, you’ve got something there … and if they can’t, well then it sucks big balls!

Your mantra will be a huge waste of time if it’s jammed with meaningless phrases, and hype that nobody remembers anyway. Most of the ones you’ll see (because they were blindly paid for) will essentially be filled with boring, yet professional-sounding phrases like “excellence” and “leadership”, which make them all sound exactly the same. So, if this even remotely sounds like you mantra you better change it quickly, and then test your new one by first asking yourself, honestly, whether your competitors could write (or buy, I mean) the exact same thing. Does it make you stand out high above them? If not, try again … until you get it right!

Also, before you take the time out of your busy schedule just make sure you’re going to use it in the first place. Will it actually set the goals of the company? Will you refer to it often in your ads and boardroom meetings? Will your team members know it and believe it when they see it (or just talk crap about it behind your back)? Then come the hard questions: 1) Do you want to profit hand over fist, or do you just want to make a decent living (nothing wrong with either path, to be honest with you)?, 2) What benefits will your customers gain by going with your company?, 3) Do you solve a problem for them?, and 4) What kind of internal work environment do you want for your employees? All four of these issues must be answered by that one single, few word mantra … catch my drift? Well, you better if you don’t!

My friend, your mantra is about you, your company, and your ideals! Go ahead and read some of your competitor’s to see what they’re peddling to the masses, but then write a personal statement that is all about you and not one of those places that will be eating your dust short enough! Plus, you need to believe in it yourself … if not your customers and employees will smell the bulls@#t session soon enough. Also, never “box” yourself in … your mission statement should be able to withstand your future changes that come up over time in any successful company after they’ve grown their product offerings and customer base.

Last thing: keep it simple stupid (K.I.S.S., I didn’t make this up)… the best ones tend to be three to four words long, but in those words you’ll need to define your whole purpose (scary s@#t, right?). They need to be memorable, they need to incite passion, they must be active (opposite of passive) and if you can’t say it in under three seconds, it’s too long … I’m telling you the truth now!

Used correctly, a good mantra will make you a ton of cash, and the envy of millions who try to follow you, yet can’t (the reason: they’re not as cool)! A bad mantra will just get you laughed at … remember this always!