[GLAN]

What you are doing now is


"Tag lines"


Not mission statements.......A mission statement will consist of many words, arranged into sentences.....then if need be, the sentences formed into paragraphs........ya'll get the picture

[waterfall larry]

Who is a mission statement aimed at? What is the purpose of a mission statement? Your answer to these 2 questions will influence the formation and wording of your mission statement. I believe that a mission statement is a statement of what you intend to do for customers and that a mission statement should be aimed at customers. If so then a mission statement should be able to be understood by customers.

Nathaniel I liked your post best.

Sorry eco scapes but I think your mission statement is a good example of the typical mission statement that eschews obfuscation. You wrote,

Dedicated to solving landscape problems with functional, maintainable, and ecologically-minded practices, while creating the most unique and beautiful landscapes in our marketplace! We pledge to design landscapes capturing and enhancing nature’s inherent beauty. We wish to harness these principles and practices to create an ethical and successful business.

I think a lot of mission statements eschew obfuscation. What is eschewing obfuscation? This is a bombastic wordsmiths way of saying to not use language people can’t understand. Eschew means avoid using and obfuscation means using obscure words that people don’t know or understand. So my question is what does maintainable practices mean? What are functional practices? I once heard the phrase - form following function. Do you think the average customer would be able to define this or know what it means?

Sorry eco scapes but I think you ms is too long and complex. It would take me 6 weeks to break it down and try to understand it. A ms should have a correct length. It can’t be too short and simple or too long and complex. So while stone work’s ms can be understood, it is too short and simple. Balance is usually the best thing. So have a ms that isn’t too short and simple but don’t have one that is too long and complex. Don’t say too little but don’t say too much. Stone works nailed it, don’t be wordy and over thought. Length is also important because it needs to fit on your advertising. It may not need to be on everything such as business cards but it does need to be out front and mentioned often.

Sorry ecoscapes, I don’t mean to pick on you buddy. So let me use your phrase, - We pledge to design landscapes capturing and enhancing nature’s inherent beauty. While this is a purpose, I don’t think it is the best an most correct purpose. I believe that everything in life has a purpose. And as long as it is used for the correct purpose the best results will happen. I am eating breakfast now so what is the purpose of my knife? Would the best results happen by using my knife to eat my cheerios with? Landscaping has a primary purpose. What is it? Do you have a short and long answer? Give me a 7 word answer and a 7 sentence answer. We as landscape companies can go out and do landscaping with no purpose or with a purpose. One of my pet peeves is landscape companies who don’t seem to be aware of the primary purpose of landscaping. It is a terrible tragedy to do landscaping with no purpose or mission statement. It is better to do landscaping with a purpose. But it is best to do landscaping with the best and most correct purpose. If your landscape company is doing something other than the best and most correct purpose of landscaping, then are you doing people a service or a disservice?

[ecoscapes]

I wrote my Mission Statement to guide my principles, If customers can't understand it that's okay - that's why I have a tag line.

The Right Plant in the Right Place, The First Time!

I think if I have customers that are concerned about there impact on the environment they will grasp my Mission Statement! I need my mission statement for me and my company to declare what our purpose and practices will be. I understand that it has jargon, but those words aren't replaceable.

[waterfall larry]

It isn’t ok if your customers can’t understand your mission statement or what it is that you want to do. This is the whole purpose of a mission statement.

Eco friendly is a phrase that the average homeowner can understand but I don’t think they will understand what you meant by functional maintainable practices. I don’t want my customers to have to set there and try to figure out what I am saying. I want them to get the point without having to figure out what it is that I am saying. Hard days knight said Our main goal at "Landscape Designs Unlimited" is to care for our clients by crafting high- quality landscapes with the utmost enthusiasm and reliability! These are words and phrases that people can understand. Stonewurks wrote The best mission statement I've ever seen is Coca Cola---"Put a coke within reach of every human being on the planet." Wow! that's powerful, short, succinct, dynamic and very clear in what they are trying to achieve.

These are lucid and clear mission statements that use lucid and clear words phrases and concepts. I said wordsmith – what in the heck is a wordsmith? Why didn’t I just say author or creative writer, I could say obfuse or obscure. Do you really want to have to go look up obfuse to understand my mission statement?

It is good that you gave a lot of thought to every word because every word has value that it contributes to the overall statement and in doing so you brought out a point all of us need to consider. The problem is that we don’t have a bazillion words to use in our mission statements. Therefore we have to choose every individual word with the utmost thought. We have to use the the best and most effective words. Use powerful words not weak words, use clear easily understood words not obfuse words. Because a mission statement has limited words, every word and every phrase has to be given a lot of thought to. Make certain that the goals you want to achieve in your mission statement are the best most correct and most valuable goals. Don’t use vague words or phrases like, “the best landscape”.

So Ecoscapes, let me take a shot at re writing your mission statement and still capture the thoughts you intended. At Ecoscapes we are dedicated to providing customers with landscapes that capture and enhance natures inherent beauty and enjoyment. We use the best, latest, most effective and most ecologically correct methods and materials to achieve this and other goals.

I left out the last we wish to harness sentence because I feel that to some degree a mission statement should be an expression of what a company intends to DO and more specifically what a company intends to do for customers. What a company IS, i.e. ethical and successful is something that should be covered elsewhere.

[Ax Man]

This is what my wife and I came up with a few years ago. It gives us focus for now and the future.
Our mission is twofold at Axtell Landscape and Maintenance. Our first goal is to create a family life that teaches the fruits of hard work and includes lots of love. We hope to include our children in this family business that celebrates God's nature and allows us to serve others.
Secondly, we believe in building a relationship of friendship and trust with our clients, and our goal is to raise the level of service in our area. Our goal is to provide the highest quality products and services to our customers at reasonable prices.

[4seasons]

a mission statement is to guide your company its not necessarily for customers.
slogans are for customers--
one of the best slogans I've seen is a nursery I buy from--
"growing roots 3 generations deep"

Bruce

[waterfall larry]

mission statements then tag line and now slogans? Does it seem like things are going from simple to complex?

so now i am wondering about what these 3 things are.

1 - are they all the same thing but different people call them different things?

2 - or is a mission statement and a tag line and a slogan 3 totally different things?

If they are 3 different things then we are going to have to write 3 different things. If they are 3 different things then we are going to have to realize that they have 3 different purposes. What is the definition of a mission statement the definition and purpose of a tag line and what is the definition and purpose of a slogan? An jumping jehosophat, let’s really make this more confusing, complicated and difficult because we now have to figure out who to write it to. Are we writing this thing for our company our employees the world in general or for customers or for who?

Now let me throw out this thought. Who gets to decide what a mission statement and tag line and slogan are? Does the governor of WV get to decide or does it get defined by the dean of Penn State Universities school of business or get to be defined by the author of some book on business management? I mean where is the silliness going to stop? I can just see the governor of WV and the dean of Penn State coming to blows over who has the right to define what a mission statement and tag line and slogan are! Now if every landscaper in the country felt that they had the right to define what a ms and tag line and slogan are, wouldn’t that make the Tower of Babble seem coherent?

So the first thing we have to do is to decide this,

1 - are they all the same thing but different people call them different things?

2 - or is a mission statement and a tag line and a slogan 3 totally different things?

I don’t want to spend all that time and brain strain writing this thing only to discover that instead of writing it for my employees that I should have written it for my customers. I don’t want to spend all that time and brain strain writing this thing only to discover that instead of writing it to be a statement of the purpose of my company that I should have written it to be an advertising and sales tool.

So you decide, is it going to be 1 or 2? Personally I have decided that it is going to be #2.

[GLAN]

C'mon Larry.........they are different things............you should know that.


the message they convey is towards the same goal.


Mission Statement.
Tag Line
Slogan


All 3 are different..........

[waterfall larry]

actually i think that a mission statement is a different thing. that is why i wrote, "Personally I have decided that it is going to be #2." we need to come up with names for these animals and it would sure be nice if all of us had a standardized name or language. that way we don't get then confused and we stay with the initial jist of the thread which jw raised as wanting to form a mission statement. also it is important to make the difference between mission statement and all the other so that we realize the purpose and intended use of all 4 and when it comes time to write them we will be writing them correctly.

But when it comes to tag line and motto and slogan are these 3 things the same thing? to me they would be.

and by the way, i am not familiar with the term tag line. Could someone enlighten me as to the origins of a tag line and who uses them?

And here is another question, what would be wrong with having more than 1 mission statement and especially more than 1 tag line or motto or slogan? would this be confusing things unnecessarily?

now that we seem to have a bit of an answer to the question of whethere these 4 thing are 2 or 4 different things, could we get a consensus on who a mission statement is addressed to and what should be it's purpose?
could everyone agree that it isn't primarily a marketing tool and that it should be primarily addressed to consumers of landscaping but be made known to our employees?

by the way the concept of a mission statement is a very big and pet topic of mine. it is what makes us think about the efforts of our companies and perhaps get better focused or zereoed in on what we shoud be doing with our companies resources.

A mission statement is a really valuable thing and well worth giving a lot of thought and discussion to.

[GLAN]

OK been doing further thinking and thanks for your last post Larry.

Tag line, motto and slogan....are kinda the same thing.

Now a tag line........is something referred to in print.

Motto and slogan...........which can be the very same words.....is more of the spoken variety..........ie....."Semper Fi"...... Tag line for that would be the complete wording...."Semper Fidelis"

I first heard the term "Tag Line" from an advertising executive some 15 years ago.


Mission Statement.........I and think most will agree.........that it is as important as you think it is.....and should be understood by the public.

Now lets take a website..........should the website contain both a page for "About Us" and "Mission Statement" or one or the other?

Personaly........I think a webpage is wasted on the "Mission Statment"

I don't think the public realy gives a rats ass about the "mission statement"

[waterfall larry]

glan

good thoughts, i hadn't thought much about how and where it should go on a web site, only that it should. And now that you pointed out that some of the public may not care, that will influence what i do.

I agree the difference between tag line and motto and slogan are so minute that i am going to consider them all the same thing not spend time and effort trying to make a distinction and move on to other questions that are a lot more important. It is important to establish that they are basically the same thing because this makes our task simpler and easier, with only mission statement and everything else, we now only have to write 2 things.

CONFUSION IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

Success often comes from doing certain things but doing them in a certain order. And so before we go trying to write an effective and correct mission statement we should answer and get a consensus on certain mission statement related questions. When we don't have a name for an animal and when we have dozens of names for the same thing, this adds to the confusion and makes it more difficult for us to communicate with each other and to write something that is effective. The first thing we should do is to clarify our language and terms and reach a common consensus on certain questions. So how about these? Can anyone think of questions to add to the list?

to whom is a mission statement to be written or addressed?
What should be the purpose or goal
Should it be written to be just a statement or written to produce a result
Should it be long or short?
If short then why?
If short then how short?
Should it include landscaper eese or professional landscape lingo?
Why should we write a mission statement
Is it a valuable thing to do
If so then to whom and why?

Thanks for the clarification on tag line. I thought it might be some sort of blog or chat room thing like lol.

MISSION STATEMENT / I AND THINK MOST WILL AGREE / THAT IT IS AS IMPORTANT AS YOU THINK IT IS / AND SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD BY THE PUBLIC
I believe that a mission statement should be written to and for the public. It COULD BE written to 1 - no one in particular, 2 - to our employees or 3 - to the public. If I want to write something to my employees, it is going to be an extremely long letter On a whole ton of topics. So it seems to me that the only correct answer is that a mission statement is written to the public. Do you all agree or disagree?

WHY IS A MISSION STATEMENT IMPORTANT?

my short answer (and I do have a long one) is that the process of forming a mission statement forces us to sharpen our thinking and focus our efforts and the efforts of our companies onto things that are of the utmost importance and value.
SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD BY THE PUBLIC
If it is written to the public, it should be understood by the public that seems logical.
NOW LETS TAKE A WEBSITE / SHOULD THE WEBSITE CONTAIN BOTH A PAGE FOR "ABOUT US" AND "MISSION STATEMENT" OR ONE OR THE OTHER?
I think our mission statement should be plastered everywhere we can. Do we need an entire web SITE for our mission statement? NO. but I would have a web page for it. this PAGE may not be very long. If we feel the need to amplify on our missionstatement the do it. I might end up putting a link that says, our mission statement and then have it go to a 2 or 3 paragraph longer and fuller explanation of our mission statement. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the public would never click on the mission statement link so I would put it, unadvertised, in my about us page. That way the people still see it when they click on our about us page and I will probably end up putting it at the bottom of every one of my pages in the general vicinity of the links bar. There will be places where I just put it up and places where I put it up preceeded by a line that says, Our mission statement is …….
PERSONALY........I THINK A WEBPAGE IS WASTED ON THE "MISSION STATMENT"
I didn’t understand what you meant by this, but since a web page is for the public it should be there.
I DON'T THINK THE PUBLIC REALY GIVES A RATS ASS ABOUT THE "MISSION STATEMENT"
Perhaps some do and perhaps some don’t. A mission statement may go right over the top of the head of a Mcdonalds employee, but it would certainly get the attention of a ceo type or a person who lives in a highly professional business world. Either way a mission statement adds to the professional image of a company. Whether or not the public or a majority of the public cares is not the determining factor.
We write a mission statement for reasons other than to please the public.

[waterfall larry]

by the way

my mission statement is on the home page of my web site, paradisegardens4u.com. But where and what is it?

if you all want to comment on it or take shots at it go ahead.