Step 1: Developing Your Mission

Before moving forward with your business, you should think about exactly why you are in business. This represents your business mission and is embodied by the mission statement in the written business plan. You might say that you are in business to make lots of money. But that's probably not the real reason. As an agricultural business owner, it is more likely that you desire to maintain a certain lifestyle or be a key part of the food system. Money simply allows you to accomplish these things and continue to do them over time.

Your reasons for being in business reflect your values. As an agricultural business owner it's most likely that you will choose Internet technologies to support the business's mission and reach your goals and objectives but the web component will not become the focus of your business. Later, we discuss objectives, goals, and strategies. Each of these should be developed to support your overall mission and some of these may be related to the Internet and e-commerce.

Although the Internet may be of little help to you as you develop the content of your mission statement, it may be very useful in helping you to format your statement. Working from one or more examples may be the best way to start. Search for mission statements, particularly for farm businesses like yours. Pay close attention to how they convey their messages. Like most things, you should use what you like and discard the rest.