The Mission Statement Needs a Makeover: Using the “action tweet” to help your small business connect with customers

Ask yourself, when�s the last time you read a mission statement you weren�t tasked with writing? How about this: when�s the last time you read a mission statement with a message so powerful and eloquent every fiber in your body was instantly fused with the collective corporate identity of the company in question, your loyalty never to be tempted by a competing brand ever again? My guess is it�s been a while. The mission statement is in a sad state of dreary disrepair. When researchers Walter Newsom and Ray Hays wanted to discover if mission statements were actually worthwhile, they concluded by saying most are "amazingly vague, vapid, evasive, or rhetorical lacking specificity or clear purpose�full of honorable verbiage signifying nothing." Ouch! Some more optimistic studies do suggest that mission statements can have a positive effect on firm performance, assuming employees know them and like them, a responsibility of management. In light of a Gallup poll that revealed that 77% of workers hate their job and another that says 87% of employees work only for the paycheck, I think it's safe to say that managers aren't bonding employees with mission statements all that well. The mission statement needs a makeover, a comeback, a revival. For too long these golden chalices have been the decadent fancy of the executive class, polished and preened as the business�s declaration of independence, but rarely leaving the safety of the boardroom in which they were conceived. Businesses themselves seem to have given up completely, admitting that the rhetoric of a mission statement is completely irrelevant in the era of Web 2.0. Just think how difficult it is to find a mission statement on a website, and that�s with the sitemap. And for any idealists out there, consumers have given up too. In my experience designing websites for small biz, the mission statement, or more commonly the "about us" page, is the second least viewed page, just ahead of, you guessed it, the sitemap. The anatomy of a mission statement Author Thomas Roach Ph.D. writes, "The mission statement has a specific function: it targets action." For brevity's sake, I leave the rest to Google. Using the action tweet to help your mission go public A mission statement should absolutely target, and just as importantly, outline action, but what if the action became the mission statement itself? Considering mission statements are completely removed from the public eye, businesses desperately need a way to pollinate their values without requiring a memorization of a company doctrine. Using Twitter, businesses can radically transform how they translate the guiding philosophy of their organization into a more loyal customer base. By using action tweetes, short blurbs on how your business is delivering on its greater promises, customers have a real-time opportunity to witness how you translate rhetoric into action. Twitterfy your mission The following mission statement comes from Cafe Yumm!, a 'fast-casual' restaurant based in Eugene, Ore. that attracted a large, dedicated following when founders Mark and Mary Ann Beauchamp decided to turn their lunch-break meal, flavorful bowls of rice and beans, into a business after their deli customers began asking for what Mark and Mary Ann were having, not sandwiches: "To be the leader in providing exceptional products and services which promote a deeply nourishing, soul satisfying lifestyle. The following five guidelines will guide us in every decision we make: (1) Conscientiously develop successful relationships with people who respect our values, including our customers, investors, staff, entrepreneurial partners, and vendors. (2) Consistently provide dynamic and innovative environments which promote a healthy lifestyle. (3) Consciously maximize our contribution to sustainable business practices and healthy living within our workplaces and communities. (4) Enthusiastically develop and maintain a reputation for success in all that we do. (5) Steadfastly nurture and protect the beating heart of the Triple Bottom Line of social, environmental, and economic considerations." To Twitterfy a mission statement, all you have to do is find the day-to-day activities of your business that represent the values of your mission. You need to find the action. For example, Guideline #3 could be transla ted into a tweet like "Just replaced all our incandescent light bulbs with CFL's. They last 10x's longer and use 75% less energy." After a tweet like that all of Cafe Yumm!'s Twitter followers would know that the restaurant is maximizing its contribution to sustainable business practices without ever having had read the mission statement. The Advantage of Being Small A small business is uniquely positioned to cash in on an action tweet, considering most of its customers will be personally attached to the same local community the business operates in. As the authors of Made to Stick, Dan and Chip Heath, propose, a memorable idea creates an emotion, tells a story, and contains hooks that trigger important memories or thoughts in a person. One of the greatest ways to make an idea "sticky" is to localize it. And by localizing an idea, you create a common bond with your customer. Twitter and the action tweet is merely the vehicle to generate this relationship without the customer needing to be intimately involved with the business's day-to-day operations. No big business can match this level of personalization with the same amount of authenticity. Conclusion Turn your mission statement loose, but not before you can substantiate rhetoric with action. The mission statement may remain the least read document on any business's website, but the individual actions that business's take to realize their holiest of goals don't have to remain in the closet. By using the action tweet any business can show customers that its mission is not just words, it�s a call to action. At the end of the day, the action tweet is about strengthening the community of your customers by letting them bond with a business that has visible, active roots in people's lives.

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