What Is Your WHY?

Developing a meaningful mission can be challenging. Historically, companies tend to define their mission in nonspecific, internally oriented, and overly simplistic terms that make these statements sound generic. Some leaders focus on short-term problems rather than creating a mission that reflects the long-term direction of the company. Some mission statements are so full of buzzwords and jargon that they become nonsensical. Some companies don't even take the time to create a mission and leave it to employees to make it up as they go along.

Inbound organizations are very clear on the WHY of their business. A WHY could include the reason the business started or the reason it currently exists, or what it hopes to do in the future. In traditional organizations, the WHY often defaults to doing more business or attaining a certain level of profitability, or reflects the personal interests of ownership.

We have heard the owner of a midsize business in the central United States proudly state, “Our mission is to get to $100 million in revenue.” That is not an inbound mission.

An inbound mission starts with WHY and works backward. Defining your mission makes it very clear what the company stands for. It helps recruit the right employees who have the proper values, attitudes, and interest in working toward that purpose. It creates a culture where everyone understands the core values of the leadership team and gives meaning to the work. Simon Sinek popularized the notion of finding your WHY. He says, “Every one of us has a WHY, a deep-seated purpose, cause, or belief that inspires you.”¹

In markets characterized by the overabundance of purchasing options, when buyers are faced with dozens of choices for every transaction, a powerful mission carries weight in the decision process. A socially responsible mission could be a significant buying factor. Modern buyers expect that all products meet a standard level of utility. They expect products to work as advertised. Buyers often believe that one product is as good as the next. A modern buyer values a relationship with a company that shares her values, without sacrificing any quality or utility. Buyers increasingly look to buy from companies that match their personal beliefs and that contribute to a mission that lines up with those beliefs. Millennials say they are 60% more likely to buy from socially conscious companies.

An inbound mission recognizes that there is a target market that the organization serves. Within this target market is an ideal company profile (good fit company) and an ideal persona (defined person) who has a specific need. An inbound mission answers an important question for this buyer, explaining what the company does for them. The mission is how your company uses your resources, people, products, and service capabilities to help a certain set of people in a specific target market solve a specific problem.

An inbound organization details its mission around the customer's definition of success.

Does your company mission reflect this new business reality?

According to Frank Auger, CIO of HubSpot, “Most companies have missions, but they are often fluff and propaganda. Inbound companies stand out and thrive because the mission is real and reflects the values of the organization. They publish it, refer to it and use it as a guidepost in everyday work. This is an evolution of the workplace over a generation. Back in the day, we were happy to have a job. Today's job seekers want much more than that. They want a mission and purpose. The challenge is that many companies haven't defined a specific reason for why they exist all the way through to the customer.”²

Document Your Mission

After you develop the mission, the next step is to document and communicate it to everyone. An inbound mission should include all the attributes just discussed and be reflective of the way you treat your customers. It should be devoid of buzzwords. It should reflect the intrinsic values of the company. Organizations must combine their statements about being socially conscious with clear actions that prove this commitment. Your customers can tell if you are authentic or not.

A good mission should include attributes such as who you intend to help, what issue or problem you seek to improve, and how you will help your customers achieve their goals.

The following are some examples of mission statements that embody the inbound philosophy.

Forge (joinforge.com) is a San Francisco–based startup trying to help part-time employees gain better control and advantage from working multiple jobs.

“Forge is creating a new contract between employers and employees that offers workplace and schedule flexibility to those working in the service industry,” says Stacey Ferreira, Forge CEO.

The Forge mission is an excellent example because it is very straightforward. It doesn't talk about a product or internal process, or use words that are misleading or confusing. It focuses on how the company is helping both the businesses and employees that it serves.

Stacey said,

It was easy for us to pull this together. We started the company because we saw that small retail outlets, hotels, and other local employers had a huge problem finding quality part-time workers. To set their weekly staffing plan, they would post a PDF near the break area so that workers could see their assigned work hours a few weeks in advance and try to plan around that schedule. But the problem was that the schedule changed, so managers had to work the phones—calling workers on short notice to try to get them to work extra shifts if someone called in sick or if there were holes in the schedule. Managers spent all their time trying to get the right staffing the old-fashioned way—on the phone. This was very time consuming and inefficient for everyone involved. Employees were in a tough place too and frustrated. They wanted to work more hours to make more money to feed their families and didn't want to have to wait to get a call or play phone tag. There were a lot of balls in the air. So that meant they usually needed to work many part-time jobs in many locations to make ends meet. If we could give them an automated way to coordinate that process, if we could help part-time employees find hours at other outlets or locations nearby, we thought we would be able to build a company that would serve both constituencies.³

The Forge mission is an inbound organization mission.

Amelia Wilcox is founder and CEO of Incorporate Massage. This $2 million services company in Utah provides corporate massage programs for businesses in North America and has a clear company mission.

Our mission is to make people happy and improve lives through mobile chair massage.

As soon as I heard about the inbound philosophy, it struck a chord deep within me, and I recognized it as truth the moment I heard it. The inbound philosophy aligns completely with my company's value proposition, and is an extension of the way we think. I invested in inbound marketing as a way to grow the business because I was looking for leads and customers, but I quickly realized that the inbound philosophy is more than a set of tactics to connect with prospects.

Everyone works overtime here to make sure we provide a good customer experience—that is a given. But the inbound philosophy is about how we think and operate as an organization—it's about how we help everyone; our own team, our clients and their employees, and even the local economies we serve. It's a human mindset. And if that is inbound, then that is what we do.⁴

Bob Ruffolo, co-founder and CEO of IMPACT Branding, a Diamond-level HubSpot partner and inbound marketing agency, talks about the importance of mission development to his company's growth.

“Our mission is to help people and their organizations succeed by learning and using inbound. We went through a tough period a few years back, and to a large extent, the lack of a real vision led to our struggles.

We worked hard tactically, but our people needed a better reason to excel than just the task in front of them. We gathered our people and wrote out every characteristic we liked in each other and what we loved doing with a passion. This process forced us all to focus on what we are passionate about doing, what had the most impact on our customers, and the future effect we all wanted to have in the world.”⁵

A good test of the strength of your mission is to ask yourself if any other company could use the same statement to describe their organization. If another company could use the same language, then it may be too general. If your mission is unique to you, then you are closer to the mark. Another test of mission quality is to ask a few employees to read the mission and see if they recognize it as specific to your organization and reflective of the way you conduct business on a day-to-day basis.

The mission sets the tone for the culture. In HubSpot's case their mission is to “delight SMB and mid-market companies by transforming how they grow.” HubSpot's ideal customers are small to medium-sized businesses, anywhere in the world, who are looking to scale and need more leads and customers. HubSpot's customers are delighted when they have access to easy-to-use software that enables good fit customers to find their website.

“The best damn customer experience” is the way Fattmerchant describes their mission. At Fattmerchant, it is more than a slogan. It is a reminder of the company's expectation to everyone in the company.

According to Dharmesh Shah, here is what makes a good mission:

1. Accurate: This should go without saying, but the statement should describe what you do. It should be a bit aspirational, but you have to “walk the walk.”
2. Simple: It should be easy to understand.
3. Distinctive: It should be yours. Bonus points if it's nonobvious and memorable.
4. Short: It should be a sentence and fit in a classic tweet of 140 characters.
5. Future-resistant: The mission not only should describe you today but should stand the test of time.
6. Inspiring: It should describe a company of which you are proud and want to be a part.⁶

Inbound organizations start with their WHY and build a mission to define and describe it. Then they communicate it through the organization so that it becomes a foundation for the business.

The mission unites everyone and provides an inspirational statement defining what everyone is working toward. The mission offers buyers a clear understanding of who you are and why they should care about you. Mission or purpose driven companies see higher profit as well.⁷

Inbound organizations start with their authentic mission and work toward achieving it with passion and focus.