Having a well-defined company vision and strategy provides you with a range of benefits, starting with a clear understanding of what your company aims to achieve for its clients, sponsors, and staff, as well as a picture of what it stands for.
It also gives you an internal direction regarding activities, actions and decision-making, and outlines the organisational values that ultimately drive the behaviours, ethics, and how such tasks are carried out.
Moreover, it differentiates your business from competitors, attracting the right set of investors, clients, future talents, and other stakeholders, while setting the appropriate goals and objectives to reach the desired results.
Conversely, operating without a strongly identified mission and approach can lead to confusion, procrastination, and misinterpretation. Simply put, without clarity around who you are as a business and what you are here to do, those who initially engage with you may not transact or, if they do, not commit to doing so long-term.
Find Your Purpose and Identity
One of the key reasons why consumers choose not to purchase or engage with a business is when its authenticity, cause or mission, and values are poorly identified and communicated, leading to misunderstandings or misinterpretations.
This is why business owners and/or management should introspectively analyse the business’s identity and purpose at its very core, including (but not limited to):
- Values and Beliefs: A framework of ethics that drive behaviours and, consequently, its actions and results.
- Mission: The overarching calling of the business, how it aims to achieve and support the parties who engage with it.
- Purpose: A higher sense of how it helps the world in some way, either directly through its core products and services, or through indirect and wider actions or activities.
- Differentiators: The business’s features and voice that make it truly unique.
These are the underpinning factors in understanding and communicating why the business exists and the reason it strives to achieve what it does. It is essentially its DNA and its MO.
This is important to reach two different sets of audiences:
External Audiences
- Authenticity is key for consumers when deciding which brands they wish to trust, associate with, or purchase from.
- Companies that demonstrate a clear and meaningful mission and purpose are more likely to secure engagement and commitment.
- The promotion of clearly defined values enables a customer to make an informed and considered choice, leading to a more sustainable and longer-term relationship.
Internal Audiences
- Just as with external parties, employees and stakeholders must feel a genuine connection with the organisation to ensure a long-term sense of fulfilment.
- Defining your purpose provides a transparent view of your business’s top priorities to motivate and inspire colleagues, in addition to ensuring investors understand what the future looks like.
- Values are the beacon of what drives behaviours within a business to provide the intended quality of service.
Real Results
- Brand Story: Defining a business’s purpose and identity helps build an authentic brand story that will resonate and attract the right clients, suppliers, and other external connections. Connecting on a deeper level with these clients provides a higher level of loyalty and ongoing support.
- Harmony and Alignment: The combination of a strong identity and a clear direction ensures mutual understanding. When internal stakeholders, colleagues, and investors are aligned and on the same path, it leads to improved leadership, teamwork, and collaboration.
- Futureproofing: An agile strategy alongside a strong connection to both identity and purpose empowers business owners to think rapidly and adapt quickly to change, enabling a quick response to the external market and other impactful shifts.
As Larry Ackerman said, “Identity is cause; brand is effect, and the strength of the former influences the strength of the latter.”
Therefore, it is crucial to know it, don’t you think?
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