What makes your business “yours”? With so many options for people, what makes your business stand out from your competitors? Is it quality, service, accountability, responsibility? Identifying your business’s purpose and goal is vital to gaining the trust of your customer.
Here are 10 steps to successfully define your business’s overall purpose:
- Identify what you do.
- Know who you are.
- Explain how you can help.
- Clarify why your business does what it does.
- Recognize your business’s values.
- Find your business’s purpose.
- Create a cohesive brand.
- Determine your target market.
- Know your role.
- Complete your goals.
These steps can help customers better understand your business and keep them wanting to come back. Here is a little more detail about how to complete these steps and keep your business moving forward.
Step One: Identify What You Do
Every business has a “what” behind their name. Whether it’s a product or a service, each business has something to offer the customer. Your business may have a large array of products or just one service. Identifying what your business can offer to a customer is the first step toward acquiring a sale.
Step Two: Know Who You Are
Every business is made up of people, from the leaders of the company to the employees and service workers. Each person in the company has a role to play in effectively completing the company’s goals. Even though there are many individuals that make up a company, all employees should be like-minded in their actions and service.
Step Three: Explain How Can You Help
Businesses need to have a clear and easy-to-understand process to portray to their customers. The “how” behind your business can help set you apart for the other competitors. These are the things that make your business special and define how you can help solve current problems customers may have.
Step Four: Clarify Why Your Business Does What It Does
After you have decided what you do, who you are and how you can help, next is clarifying the why behind your company’s goals. Why does your company have the need to solve these problems for its customers? The why behind your company is not about making money, that is the result. It’s about the overall belief of your business, or the very reason your organization exists.
Step Five: Recognize Your Business’s Values
We all have personal values, but each organization needs to have their own business values as well. What is your company dedicated to? What makes you want to come to work every day and continue to help those customers in need? A core value is something that guides your company’s actions, unites its employees, and defines your brand. This is what your business lives by and what strengths you want to uphold and portray to the world.
Step Six: Find Your Business’s Purpose
Based on your business’s values, you will discover the purpose, the reason your company has formed. Many companies include their company’s purpose and values in a simple, single sentence mission statement. It can be industry specific or broad so as to not limit your business’s future activities. It’s important to distinguish your company from the rest with a statement signifying your vision and why this is important.
Step Seven: Create a Cohesive Brand
Your business brand should not just portray your service or product, but it should tell a story. Telling a story is a powerful way to engage and build relationships with your customers. You can use your brand as your company’s personality. Within your brand you can use other successful outcomes to further show the integrity of your business.
A successful brand carries the company’s message in a simple yet integrating way. Having a strong logo, with bold colors and consistent design is an easy way to get your audience to remember your company.
Step Eight: Determine Your Target Market
Not everyone may be in need of your business’s service or product. Identifying the people who you can help and those who have a need for your message will make your business more successful. Finding the market best suited for your message will make your message more memorable. Your content can be focused around the target market’s needs and expectations to better get your business’s message across.
Step Nine: Know Your Role
Knowing your business’s role is key in defining your business. Take a look at what your business has and what your business needs. It’s important to pay attention to the needs of your customers, employees, and co-workers in a way that contributes progress towards the company’s goal and purpose
Step Ten: Complete Your Goals
Business goals can be long-term and big or short-term and small. Each day it’s good to know what goals you would like to accomplish first. Track your progress as you go, create milestones and get creative when you reach those milestones. Whether it’s higher sales, faster production, higher satisfaction ratings, or other goals, using your company’s values, purpose, brand, market, and role will help your business reach those goals. Once your goal has been reached, you can use your success to help tell the story of your brand and give more evidence toward your business’s mission.
What if I Can’t Find My Business’s Purpose?
Finding your business’s purpose can be difficult if you are just looking on the surface. This is where you dig a little deeper into the “why” behind your company. Your purpose helps on the days when things seem very difficult, it also helps you rally people around you because they know there’s a bigger purpose to your work.
You want to think about the big picture, what you want your company to stand for and the vision you want to hold. Keep your company’s values in mind and think of what would make the employees proud when working for this company.
What if My Business Has an Existing Brand, but It’s Not Cohesive?
Maybe your company already has a logo or a branding style, but it is minimal or doesn’t work together. It is possible to use your existing logo and form a brand around that, as long as the logo helps build the message you are trying to portray. Once you nail down your business’s values and purpose you can integrate those into your new brand. It’s alright to throw out any old branding that doesn’t send the message your company is going for. This new brand should have similar colors, fonts, designs and all tie back into your logo and signify the heart of your company’s mission.