Gayle Rich-Boxman, Broker with Vernonia Realty

Your Gateway to the Lake!

(503)755-2905  richbox@centurytel.net

Businesses have them emblazoned on their walls, business cards, trucks.  Franklin Covey suggests it as part of their success system and it’s common for those employed by businesses to understand that that statement is a part of the Big Picture of how they approach or care for their customers.

The start to my personal mission statement “officially” began at sixteen,with my first job as a “busgirl” in a swanky restaurant and then for the next fourteen years, I was in the restaurant business doing either parttime work during college or fulltime in between career moves. Learning to be a server was humbling, fun and a LOT of work. Since that time, I’ve said to many people that I think EVERYONE should be a server for one day in their lives to really get a sense of what this is like and then maybe they’d be nicer to people in the restaurant business (and maybe TIP better) or just have a better grasp on what it is like “to serve”. Which brings me to my personal mission statement…a simple one:

TO SERVE

To be most effective, incorporate your  mission statment into every facet of your life. From your clients to your family members (including your pets!) to those with the thankless jobs like your garbage man or the local gas station attendant, it’s important to always keep it uppermost in your mind and practice it moment-to-moment.

Most mission statements that work the best and are more easily remembered are SIMPLE. My husband is VP of Operations for the largest private ambulance company in the state of Oregon and he’s been with the company 18+ years. His business/personal mission statement?  No excuses…just results.  Ask anyone in the company about what he finds most important and they can readily tell you this and it gives each employee CLEAR direction.

There are many ways of going about this. Make a list of what you like to do. What makes you happy? What do you do that makes other people happy?  What do friends tell you about yourself that they like or inspires them about you? It’s similar to when you wear a certain outfit and everyone consistently compliments you on it or you just feel good wearing it–same thing. It’s something naturally about you that others notice as a positive thing.

In my small community, Fishhawk Lake, my clients are my neighbors.  So, in the last few years, I’ve humorously said to people that my job is “Realtor and other jobs as assigned.” It usually makes people laugh when I give them examples that are rather out-of-the ordinary for what you study to become a broker. I’ve loaded a woodstove for a buyer when the seller inadvertently turned the electricity off and it was a stormy snowy weekend and the electric company wasn’t going to get it back on til that Monday. I’ve set up roofers, taken late night calls from many neighbors wanting to know weather conditions before they drove out, or needed me to lock up their home when they left and forgot to. One of my favorites is the time a new buyer showed up at my house at 9PM with bratwurst sausages to have me cook for him because he was starving and he had no kitchen. And I’m a vegetarian!!

It might be easy to come up with a mission statement–it’s harder to live up to it everyday. Keep it simple, embrace it and WORK IT!