The right mission and vision can instill purpose in your employees and propel your agency toward success. Here’s how to get them right. 

Arguably one of the most important aspects of any successful business – small or large – is the passion and motivation fueling your brand. Startups, small businesses, and Fortune 500 companies alike are all building out mission and vision statements that accurately reflect who they are, who they help, and what they want to achieve – all of which are part of sharing your brands story.

Brand storytelling, as we know it, is a way for companies to craft a narrative that becomes the central anchor of your organization. From there stems the ins and outs of everyday business. Having this foundational message helps to keep operations intact and on track.

While mission and vision statements certainly aren’t the first thing a potential client will search for when they open your website, it’s always a good idea to have one crafted. If they do happen to come across it, they will be impressed with the direction that your company is headed. Even though these statements are not the first thing prospects will see, having a proper company mission and vision will impact the things they do see, because behind the scenes, it shapes everything you do.

Behind any meaningful organization is the desire to move at least one mountain – especially when we’re talking about service-oriented companies like home care agencies. You wouldn’t have started or taken on a project if you weren’t enthusiastic about it (at least most of the time).

Mission and vision statements help to define your story more clearly and simply. They give a face to the company and one that usually says, ‘I love what I do, and here’s why I do it.’ Having a well-thought-out mission and vision is a complete game-changer.

A mission statement can be defined as something that describes the present. It highlights the reasons for what you do and who benefits from it.

A vision statement is something that points to future objectives or identifies what you are working towards.

These premeditated ideas give your clients a more focused view of your home care agency and help to position it within the industry. Not only are these tools used to communicate with your audience, but they also can be beneficial as you go about adding new team members or look for more stakeholders.

If you don’t yet have a mission and vision statement, this will help walk you through it. If you already have them written, this is your chance to audit them and make sure they’re driving your organization in the right direction.

A mission statement can define itself. However, it is more or less a summary of the values and purpose of the company. It seems quite simple, but there are still a lot of attributes you should consider to WOW your audience.

We recommend opening a word document and jotting down some of your answers as you go. It will help as you condense your thoughts into a pithy, one to two sentence statement.

#1: Define Your Reasons for Running a Home Care Agency.

Think back to the moment you decided to start your home care agency. What led up to that point? Maybe you were simply excited to help people or wanted to transition from working as a caregiver yourself to managing operations.

Many of the agency owners our team talks to joined the home care business after caring for their own family members and deciding that they wanted to help other people ensure that their family was taken care of too. It’s likely there was something that sparked your interest in home care, and figuring out the reasons is key.

Running a home care agency isn’t for everyone. It requires the best of the best – those who aren’t afraid of challenges and are determined to tackle caregiver turnover and recruiting.

This is only part of the brainstorming process. While it’s not an exactly something that will be spelled out in your mission statement, it should help to get you started.

Once you can get to the root of why you wanted to start, and why you continue to run a home care agency, the rest will be a breeze.

#2: What exactly does your agency do? Define the business in terms of how it helps the customer.

The biggest thing here is determining how your business operates. Be specific and highlight what makes you unique.

Are you providing excellent care? Practicing a low-cost, high-satisfaction model? Ensuring strong patient and family communication?

Whatever it is, be specific and make sure that you keep your target market in mind.

#3: What are your company values?

Company values should be woven into the mission statement. Although there is not room to state every single one individually, there is usually a bigger picture that encompasses all of them. What few words would you use to describe your company values in a nutshell?

At Activated Insights, this could take many forms, but based on our core values one word that could describe our values is “growth.” We are seeking to find growth on every level – in our internal operations and in various home care agencies across the country.

#4: How do you want to be perceived?

Evaluate if there is a certain message or idea, you’d like clients to think of you by. One good way to do this is to go back through online reviews or positive messages clients have shared in the past. Was there something that they emphasized that you’d like to incorporate further into your message?

#5 Review each of the areas above. Cut, simplify, edit, and review.

At this point, you should have a pretty solid list of thoughts. The key to forming a successful mission statement is to keep it short and direct. It tells, in a large part, why your company exists in just a few quick sentences at most. Make it memorable.

While there is no perfect formula for writing a mission statement, here is one that we suggest using for your home care agency if you are just getting started.

At ____(name of company)___, it is our mission to ______ (reasons for the work you do)____ by providing ____(type of care)_____.

In action, this looks like:

At *home care agency*, it is our mission to improve the quality of life of our clients by providing high-quality services that exceed industry standards.

Here at Activated Insights, our mission statement is an important piece of our identity. Our mission is to empower home care providers to deliver superior care. It doesn’t add a lot of fluff, but more so, emphasizes who we help and what we help with.

Here are a few other examples that you might find helpful:

It’s very easy for a company mission to turn into a cliché statement. One way to avoid this is by involving your staff in its creation to make sure that you have a full understanding of what really drives everybody in their work.

Like a mission statement, a vision statement is another way to share the purpose of your company. However, they are very different in that a mission statement focuses on today while a vision statement focuses on tomorrow.

Vision statements express a forward-thinking demeanor. Essentially, it provides insight into the future with specific outlook on the long-term plan of your home care agency. Crafting this statement means you’re looking toward a future of growth while trying to achieve real results. It takes a deep look into the foundation of the company and assesses how you can measure your goals.

Vision statements are typically concrete ideas but are flexible in the sense that it can take on many forms within your home care agency as you grow. A vision statement is something that adapts with the agency.

#1 What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish?

Having a clear set of goals is the first step to cultivating a successful vision statement. While having a clear idea of what you are working to achieve in the present day is important, this area will help you to take a look into the future to define what you are ultimately working towards.

#2 What actionable mile markers can you hit?

As an agency, envisioning where you see yourself down the line is critical. A good question to ask yourself is: What metrics or goals are you aiming to hit and how will you measure if you’ve met those?

Working through this section, keep in mind that all the best goals are SMART. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound.

#3 How do you see the company evolving over time?

Dream big. As you look from A to Z, what do you see happening in between?

Surely, things will change overtime as your agency expands. This could take on many different forms but being able to recognize or visualize the opportunities ahead of time is important.

#4 What are your agency values?

As with the mission statement, identifying your agency values will help to keep a firm focus on the issues at hand. They are subtly woven in and help to hold your organization together as you move forward.

Here are a few examples that you might find helpful:

When coupled together, a mission and vision statement will help to ensure that everyone is on a level playing field and they are all working to maintain and uplift a single purpose.

Mission and vision statements outline standards and aim to promote a culture of growth. These statements can be an inspiration to staff, stakeholders, and clients as you aim to provide quality care.

While sharing your company story in just few sentences isn’t always an easy thing to do, you’ll find that it will provide more direction and will define objectives more clearly.

Every company has a story that is worthy of being shared. What is yours?