Mission Statements and Company Values. You learn about them in almost every business class. Hopeful candidates relentlessly memorize them to prep for their dream job interview. There are hundreds of articles reiterating the importance of these three components for every company, and on top of that, there are thousands more articles helping start-ups create their own. But what do they mean? A Mission Statement can be defined as, “… a short statement of an organization’s purpose, identifying the scope of its operations....it may include fundamental matters such as the organization’s values or philosophies, a business’s main competitive advantages, or a desired future state.” Okay, but what does that REALLY mean?
First, let me give you little pop quiz. Don’t panic, this is a judgement-free zone. Can you recite your company’s Mission Statement or Values without having to look them up? For those of you who can, we give major props to both you and the company you work for. Someone’s doing something right. For those of you who can’t, stay calm, you are far from alone.
Through our combined professional experience, my parents and I have found that, more often than not, a company’s Mission Statement sounds a lot like a group of board members sat in a stuffy meeting room and attempted to cram as many business-trendy buzzwords they could into one run-on sentence. Take that day and apply the Groundhog Day effect until you have your completed list of Company Values as well. The result? Long, wordy phrases that started out meaningful, but ended up so drawn out that no one knows what they actually mean.
Don’t get us wrong. We completely agree with the value of creating a Mission Statement and a set of Core Values… but that’s basically where our agreement ends. We didn’t want to string a bunch of buzzwords together just to check “Writing a Mission Statement” off our never-ending to-do list. Instead, we wanted to create something that not only summed up who we are as people (and therefore as a company), but also something that we could use every day in all aspects of our day. Something our employees would constantly be trained on, something our customers would know once they walked in our doors, and something we could always refer to whenever we were in need of some guidance. So, we sat down in our living room, looked each other square in the eye, and said, “What does Jubie’s mean to you?” From there, the rest is (hopefully) history.
Before we started brainstorming, we collectively decided to ditch the phrase “Mission Statement” altogether. Instead, we agreed to create a Mantra for Jubie’s Creamery. The difference? Think of a Mantra as a slogan—something that is repeatable, easy to remember, and (in our case) representative of an overall goal. It’s not just a buzzword, but a lifestyle, and we wanted our Mantra to illustrate why we created Jubie’s in the first place. This entire journey began with a Romeo and Juliet dream to merge the two families of frozen dessert—hand dipped and soft serve—to ensure that star-crossed ice cream lovers would never have to reconcile a feud over it again. Ultimately, we wanted to be your go-to ice cream store by always being the first answer to anyone that asks, “Who wants ice cream?” because we already know you want it. At the end of the day our Mantra became...
Cool. So how are we going to actually become your go-to ice cream store? Allow me to introduce you to our Company Values. They are the whole P.O.I.N.T. behind our Mantra.
Every single thing we have done since the beginning of this project has been carefully thought out and discussed. I’m not kidding. We spent months drawing, discussing, and redrawing our parking lot to ensure it’s not only the safest, but also has the best traffic flow… and you haven’t even stepped inside the building yet. We want to be proud of our entire guest experience from the tunes we play to each ingredient we use. Our family has always strived to hold itself to the highest of standards… so why wouldn’t our business be the same way?
Everyone’s got a reputation. We believe that a great reputation stems from paying close attention to the finer details that tend to get overlooked. Through our training and our systems, we will focus almost all of our efforts on these details to ensure they consistently meet or exceed our high standards and expectations. First impressions are everything, and if we don’t nail ours, we will work together to fix it to make sure we nail it the next time. And every other time after that.
There are many reasons people decide to open a business, but at the end of the day, aren’t we all just trying to make some cash money? We’ve put our blood, sweat, tears, and a pretty big chunk of change into opening up Jubie’s. Why? Because we believe in it wholeheartedly, and we hope to find people who believe in it almost as much as we do. As our brand grows, we want to invest that success back into our business and empower our people to grow with us. Without them, none of this could ever be possible.
Our community means everything. They are our biggest supporters, our loudest advocates, and some of our closest friends. At Jubie’s, we aspire to celebrate them every day because they are so much more than just another customer to us. By mentoring our people, hosting a variety of events, and creating ice cream flavors inspired by our community, we strive to make a positive impact on every single person who steps through our front doors.
Everyone loves ice cream; it's a fact. And it’s one of the main reasons we wanted to open Jubie’s in the first place. People don’t need ice cream to survive, so instead, they get it because they aced that science test they’ve been studying for or because Fun Aunt Judy came to visit. People think of ice cream as a means of celebration, amusement, and entertainment. Our people will create an atmosphere that embodies this mindset of pure bliss by starting every task with our fun foot forward.
Yes, it is true. We were finally able to check “Create a Mission Statement and Company Values” off our to-do list. But to us, the task is far from complete. These carefully thought out statements mean nothing if we don’t use them in our day-to-day decisions. We don’t want to just talk the talk. We want to be known as the company who walks the walk.
-Jubie