Your Mission Statement Is Furniture.

Unsolicited opinions

Somewhere on your website, there's probably a mission statement.

Here's a test. What does it say?

Not where it is. What it says. Without looking.

Most people can't answer that. Which is worth sitting with for a second, because it's your mission. If you can't remember it, it's not a mission. It's furniture.

I've read a lot of these, and most of them are interchangeable. Empowering families. Transformative connection. Nurturing confidence on the journey.

Cover the name at the top and it could be a carrier brand, a doula, a sleep consultant, or honestly a bank with a soft rebrand.

That happens because the statement was written for the wrong reader. It was written to sound right, for some imagined committee that grades websites. Nobody was ever going to read it and pick you because of it.

I owned a babywearing store in New York for ten years. I could not recite you a mission statement from that era.

But I could tell you exactly what we were for. Any of us could, on the spot, out loud, to a stranger.

A mission is the sentence you'd say to a stranger at the playground.

So skip the eight-step worksheet. Answer three questions instead, in the plainest words you own.

Who do you help. Not "families." Which ones. The overwhelmed second-time parent? The NICU family? The dad nobody makes carriers for?

What's different after they see you. Not what you offer. What changes.

Why you. What do you know, or refuse to do, that the next consultant doesn't?

If you can say all three out loud without cringing, you have a mission. Writing it into a fancy paragraph afterward is optional.

One more thing, about values, since those usually get bolted onto the same page.

Your values aren't the list on your website. They're what you do when it costs you something. The consult you turn down. The product you won't recommend even though it sells. The referral you make to someone else because they're the better fit.

Clients can't read your values page from across the room. They can absolutely see what you do.

So here's the whole assignment. One sentence you can say to a stranger. Three honest answers behind it. And values you could prove in court.

Delete the rest.

Bianca.

I also make zines, stickers and printables under Noted., for people who like paper more than they can strictly justify.
notedperiod.com