Mission has the power to set brands apart. The best way to understand that power is to see it in action.

So that’s exactly what we’re gonna do...with a little help from my favorite fairy tale.

The example we'll be working with: Meet Aurora

You probably remember her from whatever version of Sleeping Beauty you were introduced to as a wee tater tot.

Aurora lives in a far-off place where’s there’s not a lot of industry, so she turned to online business to fund the repairs her castle so desperately needed. She wasn’t quite sure what she could do until, kaboom, she realized that working through her own personal struggles meant she could do the same for others.

Dawning was the end result. Aurora named her business after the day she woke up and realized she wanted to be living a completely different life. Through Dawning, she works one-on-one with other women who are feeling stuck in the middle of a major life transition.

We can do better than that!

For some people, Dawning's mission statement is good enough:

After all, it has the who (other women), the what (working one-on-one), and the problem (stuck in the middle of a major life transition). That's the basic template for a mission statement.

But honestly? That’s not enough for customers to understand what you do, exactly. It's also not enough to keep you on track as you make decisions and develop as a professional.

What makes a mission statement useful? A niche

A niche is a small section of a larger whole that something else fits into. In art, a niche is an indentation in a wall where a sculpture stands. In business, a niche is a narrow market you serve or a highly specific problem you solve.

A niche mission statement, in contrast to a general one, helps you clarify your vision and make it actionable, right here and right now.

That's good for you, because it keeps you on track and inspired. And it's good for your target audience, too, because they know exactly what to expect from you and your work.

Let's see how we can turn a general mission statement into a niche mission statement by digging into purpose and a vision for the future.

Step-by-step guide to creating niche mission statements for online businesses

Our made-up fairy tale princess business, Dawning, has the potential to go in a hundred different directions. We’re going to explore just a few of them here, (but if you’re into fanfic and you want to explore Aurora’s new life goal, please be my guest).

​First, we’ll take a look at three possible mission statements that could be relevant to Aurora’s business and the service she offers.

​Then, we’ll dig into those mission statements and turn them into quick sketches of different brands, each with unique values, audiences, and goals.

Three possible mission statements for Dawning, Sleeping Beauty's new online business:

Now, we're going to build these mission statements out into brand messages that reflect the differences between these three unique businesses.

Aurora knows how hard it is to battle the ideals modern media bombards young girls with. Not only do young women need to achieve an impossible level of perfection, but they also need to build and nurture perfect relationships if they want to find the fairy tale true love they grew up yearning for.

In her own experience, though, Aurora has seen that a happy relationship with a lover comes only after a woman establishes a peaceful, accepting relationship with herself. That’s exactly what this iteration of Dawning seeks to achieve.

This business targets women in their mid-to-late 20s, just a few years younger than Aurora herself. While she has casual experience coaching young women, she wants to be able to help more people than her schedule allows. So, with Dawning, she wants to create an online learning empire that integrates video coaching and training sessions with live calls and Q&A sessions.

Just because everything looks perfect on the outside doesn’t mean that’s the reality—something Aurora knows all too well.

Sure, she has that fairy tale princess quality, but that doesn’t erase trauma in her past. She’s done the hard work to accept her history, forgive herself for it, and forge a future, and she wants to help other women do the same thing.

This version of Dawning is an intimate service business that takes advantage of the Internet’s many capabilities to help women in circumstances that Aurora herself has faced. Many small communities offer few resources for women who need the help of a counselor and a coach. Dawning seeks to be one of those resources.

Aurora has been able to earn several certifications and take advantage of online business automation tools to keep her costs as low to make recovery as affordable as possible for her clients.

Being royal isn’t the same as being happy. Watching her mother and her aunts and cousins growing up, Aurora touts this as rule No. 1 of fairy tale kingdoms.

Her unending optimism and desire to help her loved ones find true happiness has led her to advise her family on the sly. Now that she’s opening her own business, though, she’s itching to dish advise from a more professional place.

That’s where Dawning comes in. This third styling of Aurora’s solo enterprise is a one-to-few coaching business that’s supplemented by infoproducts. Most of Dawning’s business to date comes from small group coaching sessions and retreats, but Aurora is working hard to bring more passive income into her brand so that she can reach a larger audience 24/7.

One more thing: Your mission will evolve as you grow and change

You don't want the same things you did when you were little, and you're not going to want the same things in 10 years as you do today.

That's OK. That's life.

To accommodate that natural evolution, your mission statement will also grow with you. No matter if you're using it to guide your personal life, your professional life, or a business, you can adapt your mission to suit the life you want to live.