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What Does Your Business Stand For?

If you don't answer this before you start your business, your market will, and it may not be the answer you want. If you answer it after you start your business, or change the answer, you will have to undo whatever answer your market has adopted. You may also need to change it as your business and its market change.

The answer becomes your brand positioning statement. Some also make it their mission statement. The answer is what you want the world (especially your target market and customers) to think of your business. If you get your market to think of your business as synonymous with personalized mosaic items for the home, when they are ready to buy a set of matching coasters and trivets, they will think of you.

The answer should be stated in one or two sentences, which you will likely find challenging. However, if you make it longer, your market won't bother to read or hear it. Shorter is better. Here is an idea:

"New Mosaics LLC expresses the uniqueness of Houstonians with personalized mosaic home décor."

In order to craft this short statement of what your business stands for, you can use your answers to these questions to steer your thoughts. The only wrong answers are those that are not brutally honest.

What are your business values? These may be the same as your personal values, but should reflect characteristics that are essential to the success of your business. As an artist it is easy to imagine that creativity and craftsmanship could be among them. Using the New Mosaics statement above, we can imagine that one value could be "honoring the uniqueness of each person."

Why do you do what you do? This gets to purpose. Purposes could be as plain as "to make a living," or "because it is fun." Or, in the case of New Mosaics, maybe it is "to lift the spirits of people."

Who do you want to be your customer? There is wisdom in defining a niche to market to. Perhaps it is Houstonians as New Mosaics has done. It would be more difficult to market to all of Texas and could be counterproductive. Also, consider defining "the best customer." Those are the ones you need to spend your marketing efforts on. If customers that don't fit the "best customer" definition are ready to pay for products or services, deal with that situation when it happens.

What are the unique benefits that you will promise your customers get from your business? New Mosaics says their customers get an expression of their own uniqueness. Remember that every business must solve a problem that customers are willing to pay for. One problem that some people (not all) have is that mass-market home décor may not make their home a reflection of them.

Once you have settled on the right statement for your business - go tell it on the mountain and everywhere, show examples of it, live it, breath it, and be consistent with it throughout your business.

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