8 Word Mission

A recent HBR blog post underlines the importance of ‘message’ brevity. Anchored in strategic management, The Eight-Word Mission Statement has wonderful connotations for the salesperson.

In the same way as it’s vital a company gets across where it’s headed in a quickfire, evocative manner, so too should salespeople be able to similarly sum up what they’re trying to achieve.

Using the stipulations of “socially minded” venture capitalist Kevin Starr, the construct must be no more than eight words. A kind of octopitch, perhaps? It must follow the rubric,

“verb, target, outcome”.

The examples quoted also give you an idea of what he’s after (“Save endangered species from extinction” & “Improve African children’s health”) albeit not quite with the final punch they could possess.

Many of the comments agree that you need less jargon, more definition. Here’s the juiciest pair;

The Drucker Test, “Does it fit on a T-shirt?”

Assess your “Fog Index” (the more words per sentence the less memorable)

In general directional terms, this is a trick many a salesteam could well deploy. It does of course, have specific pertinence when launching a new product. Take your latest innovation for instance. Can its treasured purpose be expressed in such a way?