Our Mission- Do What’s Right, Do Your Best, and Show People You Care

Many times executive teams of companies take a few hours sitting in a board room and write down their mission statement. Their purpose for being in business. They work hard at it until it sounds perfect. Then they get some posters made, put them on the wall and check that item off the to-do list.

I’m not judging them because the first mission statement or two that we had came about in a similar way. My board room may have been a deer stand:) but still, I created the mission statement to sound good, put it on the wall and that was that. But one question still nagged at me. “What is our real purpose for being in business?” I knew what it was but I couldn’t put it in words.

Since we began in business I’ve always felt a need for a company that simply did what it said it was going to do. A company that treated people with respect and dignity, and always acted with honesty and integrity. There were a lot of shady businesses in the lawn care industry, and I knew to be successful that we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel we just had to keep the promises that we made.

I did a lot of research on mission statements and came across Chick-fil-A’s. “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.” I thought that was great and perfectly written. I took out Chick-fil-A. Replaced it with Southern Lawn & Pest and made it ours, but something still wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I believed in that statement and strived to live it, but it wasn’t mine. Deep down I knew that all I had done was taken another company’s mission statement and put my name on it.

A good friend of mine sent me a link to this commencement speech by Lou Holtz, and it spoke to me so much that I watched 3 or 4 more times. I even sat down with a pad and pen and took notes. Then it dawned on me. That this is who we are as a company. It’s something we repeat often and strive to do everyday on every yard or house we treat, and in every interaction we have with a customer. It’s not just a motto. It’s our mission. Our purpose.

We still strive to be like Chick-fil-A. In fact that is our vision for this company. “To be the Chick-fil-A of the lawn care and pest control industry.” We also live to glorify God in all that we do by being good stewards of all that He has entrusted to us, and we sincerely hope that everyone has a positive interaction with our company. To ensure we are doing these things. We simply: Do What’s Right, Do Our Best, and Show People We Care.