The Reason for Your Business

As I previously mentioned, a successful business must be built on a strong foundation. The first step in building that foundation is to develop a strategy for obtaining your goals. A strategic plan is a great tool used by entrepreneurs to stay focused on building a successful business.

A strategic plan consists of 6 steps:

1. Formulate your mission statement

2. Complete an environmental analysis

3. Perform a competitive analysis.

4. Analyze your strategic alternatives

5. Set your goals and strategies

6. Set up a control system


For this posting I will focus on step 1-formulating a mission statement. My entrepreneurship class text book (Hatten 73) defines a mission statement as a description of the reason why your organization exists. It further states that your mission statement should answer the following questions; what is the purpose of your businesses existence, and how will you serve your customers? A mission statement describes what you hope to accomplish with your business, and how you plan to do it, in 25 words or less.

My textbook offered some guidance, but I still felt like I needed more. So I googled mission statements for your business and found Entrepreneur.com’s article, "How to Write Your Mission Statement” very helpful. Here I learned that a mission statement is more than a description of why your business exists. It communicates to everyone the essence of your business. After reading your mission statement customers, employees, competitors, and the community will know your businesses philosophies and goals. I found the section The Write Words particularly helpful while I was working on my own mission statement.

Using the information provided by this article as guidance, I wrote the following Mission Statement for my business:

Homemade Birthday Bakery offers cakes and party planning services to those short on time and cash. We help support our local economy by purchasing all of our supplies from other local merchants. We treat everyone with respect and compassion, offer to help when we’re needed, and we believe that a little free time is always a blessing.

Well, it is longer than 25 words, but I believe it conveys to the public the essence of my business. By helping others we help ourselves, and free time is the most valuable of all commodities. What do you think?



Works Cited

Hatten, Timothy. Small Business Management: Entrepreneurship and Beyond. New York: Boston, 2009. 73-74.

Entrepreneurship.com. How to Write Your Mission Statement. http://www.entrepreneur.com/management/leadership/businessstrategies/article65230.html