Too often companies are not clear on their purpose or publish a meaningless “mission statement.” A great purpose is brief, clear, memorable and inspiring. Here are some examples from recent Purpose Podcast interviews:
Online Tech: Exceptional People Delivering Exceptional Experiences
When I interviewed Mike Klein, he told me how it took almost a year for them to come up with this succinct statement of their purpose. As Mark Twain once said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Here was the long version they had before
We help our clients dramatically reduce costs compared to managing their own data centers. We reduce our clients’ operational risks with our experienced staff and repeatable processes. We deliver a level of operational excellence in the data center and managed services with metrics, accountability and visibility rarely seen in-house.
Which do you prefer?
Store It: Making Room for More Living
Wayde Elliot found some pain points in the self-storage industry and created Store It to address them. It’s a pain to take your stuff to the storage facility. It’s hard to organize your storage unit. You quickly forget what’s in your unit, or where it is in the unit. It’s a pain to get your stuff back when you need it. Store It comes to your house and does the cataloging for you, then takes your stuff to the storage facility and will bring any of it back whenever you need it. That’s Making Room for More Living!
Power of One Consulting: Transforming Communities by Transforming Organizations
Dr. Ken Thiessen uses the Rockefeller Habits tools primarily with non-profit organizations. Why would they care about strategic thinking, execution planning, getting the most from their people or managing their resources effectively? Because they want to fulfill their own purpose to make a difference in their community. Ken’s purpose speaks directly to why an organization would want to hire him.
Bicycle Transportation Alliance: Change the Environment to Get More People Biking
Rob Sadowsky communicated very clearly what the BTA is up to, but notice how their about page still has more verbose version of what they’re really about: http://btaoregon.org/about/ Still some work to be done there.
I free up entrepreneurs for greater impact. Day to day demands of your growing business will sap your energy and blunt your effectiveness. Together we can work to reduce demands by up to 80% while moving more quickly in the direction of your purpose.
Ted Sarvata 