To go from good to great get a mission.
About 10 Years ago as Water2buy started to grow and gain some momentum, I started trying to implement some of the things I had read in business books and learned from business coaches. One of those lessons was defining our mission or purpose.
Almost every cookie cutter book advised the same thing – I needed to write our mission statement and have a purpose! “How painful” I thought – I wasn’t too enthusiastic about wasting time, I had water filters to sell!
I remember sitting in a coaching session with a notepad and pen staring at the proverbial blank page, waiting for divine inspiration to intervene, take control of my hand and write down what it is we are about. Unfortunately that didn’t happen the only thoughts in my head were. “I’m here to sell water filters, make money and keep the lights on. Isn’t that what all small business do?” All I wanted was to keep paying the bills, pay myself and keep steadily growing.
It’s a hard thing to find or even begin to seek your mission, there’s plenty of excitement growing a business in the early days so it seems kind of irrelevant and a waste of time to be getting involved in fluffy ideas like Missions. Get more customers, get more locations, get more products – those are the important things.
Yes they are and it’s hard to see beyond them. I struggled, so my approach was to search for other companies missions. I looked at big companies in Ireland like Ryanair. I read their mission statement on their website and ended up deriving some generic version 1 draft Mission statement from it. It felt stupid, generic and not us, but writing something is an important first step – but not the final one. As I read through various companies websites I noticed that some companies have a single line mission – Ryanair ‘the low fares airline’ – which is their mission and their tagline. Simple – it might explain why Ryanair have the reputation they do.. Their mission is not to have the greatest customer service or flying experience – it’s low fares.
With that in mind I dispensed with following the generic lazy lie that so many companies tell – ‘Best customer service’, ‘Best quality product’, ‘We care’, ‘Trust us’, ‘We have your back’. (Where’s the sick bag?)
Those can be your mission if it’s truly what you want, but most companies get those from their marketing department and not as a vision of their founder. Do not follow.
After clearing Level 1 and beating the Bullsh1t boss, I thought about what was important to me, what’s something I pursue already. The previous company I had before going all in on Water2buy was called ‘easy internet marketing’ I though I could make internet marketing easy (I couldn’t) but I knew that the concept of simplifying things – thus making them easier was something that resonated with me. I love simplifying complexity. So with a bit more thought I broke through to the next level and created the mission ‘Water filtration made easy’. I immediately put that as the tagline under the Water2buy logo and it’s there ever since.
The mission ‘Water filtration made easy’ was perfect for us. It served as a guide, a lighthouse on the horizon. When we were unsure of what to do we just asked the question, does the action make water filtration easy? If it did, go do it. If it didn’t then move on, it’s not for us.
Having a real mission unleashed something in us that proved to be unstoppable, every day at work I got to scratch my itch. Every day there was a website to make easy, a product to make easy, packaging to make easy, customer service to make easy, delivery to make easy – the list was large but the direction was set with a sharp focus. I remember talking to a business coach on the phone about it and he was impressed, he could tell how excited I was about this simple line that would bring 10 years of direction, focus, passion and success. There is no competitor waking up on the dark days whos’ mission is ‘Sell water filters’ that is going to beat that – and that’s the key.
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