Making Sexy Mission Statements and Writing Platforms

On thought of the podcast, which is not transcribed here, Shaun gets a bit mad at political things. If you’re not into that, you might want to skip to the eight-minute mark.

Okay, first things first. What is a writing platform?

An author’s platform is basically just the author’s presence on the web. Your website. Your TikTok, your Facebook, your Twitter, your Instagram, your podcast, your blog.

Unlike Coke or Spanx, your platform isn’t faceless. It’s all about you, the writer. As the foundation of your brand, you have to figure out what it is that you want to do and achieve.

Most writers want to tell stories.

That’s their goal.

So as an author your platform is going to be about how to tell your stories and how you tell your story, especially the story of you, the writer.

I’ve failed at this a lot because I’ve historically not been into talking about writing. I prefer to just write, but that put me in a weird little vacuum, a void.

A lot of writers worrying about their platform get started with a mission statement.

WHAT IS A MISSION STATEMENT.

According to Tim Berry (link on the podcast notes),

“A mission statement is a simple statement that explains your company’s goals. It’s a summary of what your company does for its customers, employees, and owners. It explains how you do what you do. And, it focuses on why your company does what it does. Some of the best mission statements also extend themselves to include fourth and fifth dimensions: what the company does for its community, and for the world.”

And Blake Stockton wrote:

“A mission statement is a short, meaningful sentence (or several sentences) that summarizes the purpose that drives your business. A good mission statement says why you do what you do.”

It’s kind of a weird existential thing on some level because you’re basically asking WHO AM I and WHY DO I EXIST?

There are also people who absolutely believe that a mission statement should be one short sentence without a lot of fluff.

Once you have a mission statement, you think about how you can push your presence out there and what you actually want to do, Berry’s fourth and fifth steps. Those steps are over on the blog. And more that won't fit here. 

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. 

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