Create a Mission Statement and Vision for Your Business

After founding two successful companies, I can tell you the number one lesson I've learned is to have a purpose bigger than your business. One of the best things I did for my first business was to decide on a mission that was bigger than my small company, something I could care about and aim for that was far beyond anything my business alone could accomplish. My mission was also beyond making money, and this is key—focusing on money will not take your business to new heights.

When you're thinking about the business you want to grow, pick a purpose, a mission, a "why" that's bigger than your business. Determine which niche your business fits it and then go bigger, aim higher. Pick a mission that can be the shining banner over your business. This is super important, and I'm going to tell you four reasons why.

In Case We Haven't Met...

Hey there, my name is Nicole Burke, and I am the owner of Rooted Garden and Gardenary Co. and author of the book Kitchen Garden Revival.

Six years ago, I started Rooted Garden out of my backyard garden in Houston, Texas, with a refund check from my daughter's preschool for $450. That's the only personal money I've ever spent to grow my garden consulting business. In just four years, my company grossed over $1 million.

With the success of Rooted Garden, I founded Gardenary as an online platform for furthering garden education nationwide.

My companies are never going to be in the Forbes 500, but I created them both while being a mom to four kids, available to them everyday in the mornings and afternoons. One of my biggest passions is creating business opportunities for women, especially women like me who want to serve their families by earning a good income and also being an active parent.

My Mission Statement (Expanded)

Let me tell you what my bigger “why” is, my purpose in the world. It's to bring back the kitchen garden, to create a kitchen garden revival.

When I first started my business, it was honestly about making money. I had been homeschooling my children and decided it was time to put them in school. We ended up with two in private school, and that was about $20,000 my family was not prepared to spend. I'd only been working part-time as a consultant while I was homeschooling—definitely not making $20,000 to pay for private school.

My first business was born out of desperation to make money, and that's probably the main motive behind most business growth. We want money, and that's okay because we obviously need money. Money is a good thing, and I'm so thankful to everyone who has invested in themselves with my courses and products and allowed me to support my family and take care of my kids. (They’re all in public school now, yay!).

But the thing is, money won't keep you going forever. Money isn't going to get you through the hard times when you're fighting an uphill battle about what your business is really about. 

Why Having a Bigger Mission Is Important

If you've read the statistics, you know, that most small businesses don't make it past the second year, and that's because probably a lot of them are focused on money and not on a mission.

What I found soon after I started my business is that I needed a bigger mission. While I love gardens and I've cared about the people I worked with since the beginning, I soon found myself honing in on a very specific mission. Which is—say it with me now—to bring back the kitchen garden.

As I worked through my business, I realized a kitchen garden was something that had been a part of human civilization for centuries but that we’d lost it over the last century. We became dependent on produce and food that's been shipped and trucked to us from hundreds and thousands of miles away. 

Something clicked.

And suddenly, I was able to see beyond the consults and installations. I was able to get very specific and purposeful in my messaging and in everything I did from that point forward. And everything I've done from then on has been to bring back the kitchen garden and create a kitchen garden revival. 

That's my mission, and my businesses, both Rooted Garden and Gardenary, fit underneath that bigger mission, though they're set up differently.

Rooted Garden designs, installs, and maintains kitchen gardens for clients in Houston, Texas. Gardenary trains people all the way through the process of becoming a gardener and then even becoming a garden coach and a garden coach business owner. My dream is to help over a thousand gardeners start their own garden coach business over the next three years.

Here are four reasons why you should have a mission or bigger purpose for your own business beyond making money.

Your Mission Helps with Marketing

When you first start out as a business owner, it can be really hard to advertise. If you're like me and have some preconceived notions about marketing and feel sleazy even thinking about trying to sell someone a product you're worried is not worth much, then you might be afraid to get out there and tell people about the great work that you're doing.

Listen, marketing is imperative to business growth. If you don't market your business, you don't have a business.

That being said, I know how intimidating and nerve-racking marketing can feel. And that's why having a mission that's bigger than your business is so important.

Your mission can make marketing simpler. Why? Because you can talk about your mission instead of your business, and missions are way more fun to talk about. I realized quickly that saying things like "Buy this consult" or "Sign up for this course" gets old real fast. But I can say, "I hope you'll be part of bringing back the kitchen garden with me," and "Thank you so much for being part of this mission," and that doesn't feel sleazy at all. It feels exciting and fun, like I'm inviting my friends to come to a cool block party with me.

Now, it just so happens that I have products to sell that fulfill that mission, right? So when I invite someone to join the movement, I'm probably also inviting them to sign up for a consult with my business in Houston or to sign up for one of my online gardening courses. But I'm not having to feel that icky marketing feeling.

Your Mission Helps Clients Get Excited About What You're Doing

Studies have shown people generally don't buy products because they want the product itself. They want the feeling that comes with the product. I don't necessarily buy cream for my face because, you know, I want that particular cream. I'm buying it because I want to feel as naturally beautiful wearing it as Jennifer Aniston looks.

So when someone is buying from you or trying to decide if they want to buy from you, they're thinking less about the actual product you're going to give them and more about the feeling they're gonna have when they do business with you. This is where the mission comes in: Having a mission and a bigger purpose gets people excited. Remember, you're inviting them to a movement, to change, and that gives people something to talk about.

I don't spend a lot of time talking about my toilet paper because that's not the kind of movement I'm excited about, but I love talking about a product that I bought that has to do with real change in the world. When people buy something from you and they know that you're on a bigger mission, they have a reason to feel excited about it, to feel like their purchase has purpose too.

And then they're ten times more likely to tell their friends about it. Listen, my business grew over the first four years solely by referrals. I was relying one hundred percent on people being excited about what they bought from me, and that didn't come necessarily from my products (though they were awesome). It came from the feeling that these people had as they jumped onboard a positive shift in the way we think about food and gardens.

Your Mission Helps with Imposter Syndrome

We all get impostor syndrome. It's when you you feel like you're not telling the truth when you say that you know what you're doing.

I went to a conference once alongside amazing people like Sara Blakely from Spanx and Marcia Kilgore from Beauty Pie, and they all mentioned feeling like a pretender many times. Entrepreneurs often have these nagging questions in the back of their minds: Should I quit? Do I really have what it takes? Who am I to be selling this thing to people? Who am I to be telling people what to do?

We have to tell this voice, "Shhh! Be quiet!" The key way to do that is to have a bigger mission.

That way, you don't have to feel like an impostor because anybody can talk about a mission, right? I mean, my kids can celebrate the garden. They don't even have to know anything about gardening, and they can still invite people to come check out our garden. They can talk about how important it is for us all to start gardening again.

Speaking about the importance of something doesn't imply at all that you have professional-level skills inside that area or that you know every single thing about that particular sector. It's just something you're excited about. And what people need to hear from you is your excitement and your confidence. When you're not confident, it shows when you talk to your clients, but you can always feel confident about your mission. If you pick something that's really meaningful to you, you can talk about it with confidence and fearlessness because you so believe in what you're doing that points to the bigger mission.

So, for those of you who wrestle with yourself about whether you're ready to start a business yet—maybe you need, like, three more years of training before you're ready—let me reassure you: You're never totally ready to start a business. It's always gonna be hard. And there's always gonna to be so much more that you need to know than you already know.

But having a bigger mission is the cure for impostor syndrome and will help you to speak about your business and what you're doing with confidence because you're not speaking so much about your own awesomeness, but about the awesomeness of your mission.

Your Mission Helps with Comparison, Scarcity, Jealously, and All Those Horrible Feelings That Steal Our Joy

We're all on social media these days. That is amazing because we can find one another, but it can also be paralyzing because we see other people doing things in our space. All of a sudden, we feel like we need to protect ourselves and draw up our borders and make sure that no one finds out about that other person because they're doing something better. Surely, if our clients knew about this other person, they would want their product, not ours, right?

The whole comparison thing we do on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok can really kill your motivation and your business. But, that's not the case when you have a mission that's bigger than your business.

Every time I get on Instagram and see other gardeners stressing the importance of local foods or someone in the health and wellness space talking about eating fresh food or someone doing the exact same business I do, instead of that initial caveman instinct to protect my territory, I can celebrate them. Oh my gosh, they're making my mission happen. They're pointing more people in that direction too!

Instead of scarcity, there is abundance. There is plenty of space for all of us to play.

Do I still get jealous? Do I still compare? Do I still feel sad when she has 2,000 likes on her photo and I only have 523 (not that I'm counting likes or anything)? Of course! But my mission helps me so much. It puts me in the mindset to remind myself, "Nicole, she is contributing to your mission, so celebrate her, share her posts, tell other people about what she's doing, and be so glad that she's a part of this mission with you."

Two Ways to Celebrate Other Companies with Similar Mission Statements

These two ways have actually been huge for my business.

One: Invite Other Accounts to Take Over My Account

Several years ago, I started inviting someone in a similar space in the garden or health and wellness industries to post on my feed for one day. Not only has this helped further my mission, it also reaffirms that I don't need to have a scarcity mindset.

Two: Train Other Gardeners to Set Up Businesses Just Like Mine

I created a program called the Garden Coach Society to train gardeners all over the country (even the world) in the exact system I developed for my own business.

Here's the funny part: I've actually trained gardeners who lived in my own city to create businesses like mine. In other words, I'm creating my own competition. Now, if I have a scarcity mindset, then that's basically the dumbest idea ever, but if I have a bigger mission, which is to bring back the kitchen garden however, wherever, whenever, then training other garden coaches even in my own city makes total sense. I can't achieve my mission all on my own. I need thousands more like me to make it happen.

As you can see, it really changes the way we do business.

Determine Your Purpose

If you're starting a business, I encourage you to come up with a mission that's bigger than your business. Call it your purpose. Call it your "why". Find something bigger than what you're doing and point all your arrows in that direction. Bring in friends and create a whole tribe of people from all over who care about the same mission.

If you'd like to join me on my mission to bring back the kitchen garden, check out Garden Coach Society. Thanks for being here!