Quick. What is Fedex’s mission statement? It is only five sentences long. Five nauseating sentences long, with words like “superior financial returns for investors” and “customer requirements met with the highest quality manner appropriate.”

How can a company with a mission as lame as that kick so much butt? The reason is not their mission statement, obviously.

It’s the fact that they have a concise, clear, documented, vocalized purpose phrase. Fedex’s purpose statement is “The world on time.” In fact they have a handful of these phrases, and they all revolve around perfect, on-time delivery any where in the world.

Here’s the lesson at hand: I have said it a million times; you need to have a vision for your company. As you grow, you need every employee at your company focused on that vision. And the best way to communicate it with a simple, brief, but powerful purpose phrase.

So, here is your homework for the week. Figure out your purpose phrase. Keep it concise (no more than 5 words), document it and start vocalizing it.

My purpose phrase? “Empowering underdog entrepreneurs!” What’s yours?