Shortly after Don Bender launched Falcon Plastics in 1975, he wrote a sales letter, in which he promised, “Falcon Plastics will produce quality products, on time, at competitive prices, with customers who are committed to the same idea.”
“I always questioned why the last part was in that statement,” says Don’s son Jay, president of the $24 million custom injection-molding company. “I thought, who cares?”
In fact, Jay says, he later came to understand that the mission statement guides Falcon Plastics’ response to customers who don’t share the company’s commitment. “That last part is the most important,” Jay, now 46, asserts. “If you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t care if you’re successful,” he explains, “you probably won’t be successful, and you’ll have problems. We will ‘fire’ customers if they aren’t supporting us trying to meet those goals.”
He did just that in the fall of 2000 when he stopped dealing with his biggest customer, which he says represented 25% of sales. This customer wanted Falcon to follow it to Mexico and open a plant there, Jay explains. “That would have been a way to establish ourselves in a foreign country, grow and learn quite a bit—if it would have worked,” Jay recalls. “But because they were pulling us away from our mission statement, we didn’t want to take that kind of risk with them. That customer wouldn’t pay us on time and kept changing their schedule.” Jay didn’t have enough confidence in this customer to undertake a risky new venture in Mexico.
Then the recession hit. Even though the decision to part ways with the big customer hurt the bottom line at the time, “it probably was one of the best decisions we ever made as a company,” Jay reflects. “They were just using us as a supplier until we ran out of steam, and then they moved on to the next one.” In fact, the competitor that did follow the customer to Mexico went out of business, Jay says.
Falcon Plastics has resisted changing its mission statement in the 30 years it’s been in business, according to Jay. “We thought we had to have a pretty compelling reason to make a change,” he says. “That’s our mission and we’re sticking to it.”
Whenever operational problems crop up, Jay says, the mission statement helps ground the family management team, which also includes Jay’s brother Guy, 44, the company’s executive vice president and vice president of sales, as well as brother-in-law Shaun Riedesel, 41, the vice president of engineering.
“If we have delivery or quality problems,” Jay says, “this statement reminds us why we’re here and what we’re doing.”
Jay says he discusses the mission statement at company meetings and has hung it on a big banner in the plant. In addition, he notes, he’s doing what one of his customers does—the mission statement has been posted inside bathroom stalls and above urinals. “What else are you going to read when you’re standing there or sitting there?” he asks. “Seems kind of corny, but it works. And when a customer comes and visits you, they see it and know it’s important to you.”
You won’t find McCoy’s Building Supply Centers’ mission statement on the back of its 2,300 employees’ business cards, or posted on the walls of its 84 building supply stores in five states.
“Posting it on the walls can backfire on you,” says third-generation president and CEO Brian McCoy, 50. “Customers having a tough day don’t want to see it; they want to feel it.”
Nine years ago, when his father, Emmett, retired, Brian and his brother, Michael, bought Emmett’s shares and became co-presidents. In 2001, Michael sold his stake, and Brian became president of the $500 million chain. At that time, he realized, “We needed a real focus, and to communicate it clearly with our team,” he recalls.
He constructed the mission statement on a Saturday. “When you’re a family company—and I’ve been in the business since 17—it couldn’t really be done by anyone else,” says Brian. He did ply his key people for input, and they tweaked it a little, he admits.
The mission statement reads, “We provide quality building products and services to our ‘Born to Build’ customers with our valued team of unique people who are committed to both professional and personal growth.” It adds, “We celebrate an intense work ethic; yet we affirm that life is more than work.”
Brian acknowledges that the statement is a bit wordy. “If we had a one-sentence statement it would be easier,” he says, “but we’re a little more complex than that. I’m less concerned about someone being able to recite it than having even a new hire feel the culture we describe in our statement, from the first day they’re with us.”
Brian says it was very important to him that the mission statement emphasize the company’s targeted “born to build” customer. McCoy’s, which has lost a lot of casual customers to Home Depot and Lowe’s, now targets its operations, product mix and services to serious do-it-yourselfers, builders and contractors “who can understand McCoy’s strengths,” he explains.
Why does the statement refer to work-life balance? To remind employees of an advantage of working there: All McCoy’s stores are closed on Sundays, Brian says. “Our folks have that to rely on for worship, consistent quality family time and a day to recharge,” he says with obvious pride.
So just how does Brian hammer home the mission if he doesn’t post it in the office or print it on business cards? Customers and suppliers can find it on the company’s website (www.mccoys.com), and employees see it on the company’s intranet. Beyond that, Brian says, he simply tries to make sure the company’s culture and decisions reflect it.
About ten years ago, Cindy Johnson constructed a two-paragraph mission statement during a business workshop. “Like with so many companies, it was posted but it never really stuck,” says the 43-year-old owner of Fran Johnson Golf and Tennis Headquarters.
After two years, she recalls, she began to question the value of asking her employees to memorize a mission statement that may not hit home to them. “When we hire someone new, we want them to talk about the atmosphere in our store,” she explains. “We’re not just selling golf equipment. Customers are coming in to buy products to use in their spare time. I want to try to give customers fun—mention the tournament they didn’t know about, and offer them tickets if they’re interested.”
So she boiled the mission down to two concepts: “Respect of each other and our customers, and doing what’s right.” Johnson—who took over when her father, Fran, retired—says she tries to infuse the concepts in the company’s culture by encouraging her 28 staffers to take initiative.
Her staff meetings often include role-playing sessions in which employees act out an actual customer problem and discuss the different ways it could have been handled, she says. For example, she says, some employees might look askance at a customer who wants to return a pair of shoes that give her blisters. “They may get stuck on feeling, ‘If it was me, I’d never bring those shoes back,’” Cindy says. “That’s fine, but this customer is not happy. I don’t want a customer not to be OK with something. So it’s getting employees to buy into that.” Employees who provide exceptional customer service receive kudos at staff meetings, she says.
Cindy says the two concepts are no longer referred to as a mission statement. “Everyone can define what respect and doing right means to them,” she explains.
In 1986 Barrie Wilcox, the president of Wilcox Family Farms, and his brother Jim, the company chairman, observed that their children were beginning to gravitate to the family business. They hired a consulting firm to organize a retreat to develop a management action plan along with rules of entry for the next generation.
The consultants also decided this was a good time to develop a mission statement. So they all proceeded to write one that weighed in at 418 words. They posted it on plaques in their offices so their customers, vendors and 600 employees could easily see it. They whipped it out during new employee orientations and produced a video that describes the company’s history and mission.
For all that, says Barrie, now 65, “I don’t think I can say it’s guided us a lot, having it up on the wall. It’s the other way around. It just verbalizes what we are—what we’d already been doing.” The fourth-generation dairy and egg-processing company also produces cultured products, juices and farm feed. Jim’s sons James Jr., 43, and Chris, 40, are the director of operations and the director of human resources, respectively. Barrie’s sons Brent, 35, and Andrew, 33, are director of sales and director of egg operations.
Two years ago, Barrie decided the original mission statement was too long. He whittled it down to 25 words: “Wilcox Farms Inc. is committed to product excellence, business integrity, professional management, and loyalty to and from our employees, our communities, environment and family history.”
The new mission statement does not represent a change in the company’s mission or principles, Barrie asserts. “We just thought we needed it to be more condensed,” he says.
In 1998, one year before Willis Music Company’s 100th anniversary, company president Kevin Cranley decided it was high time to compose a mission statement.
Kevin figured the best way to get employee buy-in was to have staff members write it. He took 22 of his 125 employees to an off-site retreat. They represented each of the company's divisions: eight retail music stores, school instrument rentals, music publishing, music lessons and a recording studio.
He asked them to ponder their retirement: “If we were to ask employees, customers, composers and vendors at your retirement party what they remember the company for, what would you want them to say?”
The group split into teams to sketch out some concepts. One came up with the idea to use an acronym, which Kevin says he immediately liked. The initials of the first word in each phrase form the word “forte,” a musical direction based on the Italian word for “strong.”
The statement reads: “Focus on People; Offer the Highest Value in Quality, Product and Services; Reach Potential through Empowerment; Tradition of Integrity; Enrich Lives by Encouraging Music Participation.”
Kevin introduced the statement at the company’s centennial celebration the next year and created a mission committee to communicate the concept. But “the No. 1 thing we did,” in his view, was to develop a Forte Award —a lapel pin with the musical symbol for “forte.” The award is bestowed upon employees, vendors or customers whom the staff believe to be living the mission.
One year, he says, Willis’ head buyer discovered that a vendor had underbilled the company for $6,000. The employee contacted the vendor to report the discrepancy. Willis ended up paying the extra money and gave the head buyer a Forte Award.
Kevin says the employees have taken the mission statement to heart. “There have been times when employees call us on it, and say something is not really in line with our vision,” he notes. For instance, one staff member challenged a new commission system, contending that it conflicted with the “forte” concept of a focus on people. “We had to go back as a committee and look at it," Kevin recalls, “and we decided he was right.”
Kevin says his father, Ed, who retired in December 2004 at age 82, “didn’t object but initially felt the mission statement was a waste of time. Over time, as he saw the company starting to grow under my team’s leadership, he continually backed off more and more.” When Ed received a Forte Award at his retirement party, Kevin recalls, “It was pretty touching to him.”
Jayne A. Pearl, a freelance writer, editor and speaker (www.jaynepearl.com), is the author of Kids and Money: Giving Them the Savvy to Succeed Financially and a workbook based on her seminar, How to Gimme-Proof Your Kids.