(This is the third in a series of posts detailing the four most important factors in clarifying your brand purpose.)

When I take organizations through the process of clarifying a purpose, we look at three questions:

1. What are you best at doing for others

2. What are you passionate about doing for others

3. What difference could you make in the lives of others

In answering these three questions, we build a framework for what would become our purpose statement. It's a process.

'Process' is not a word you immediately associate with something so emotionally charged as your reason for being as an organization. But you have to have a process. Otherwise, you will be wandering all over the place as you try to clarify the profound difference you can make in a life, a community, or even the world.

Unfortunately, the process part tends to be a rational endeavor and can have the unwanted side effect of sucking all the emotion out of your purpose statement.

That's okay. As long as you take a beat and step back from your outcome. Then, look at the purpose you hope to embrace and give it the language that makes it moving and irresistible. This is how organizations take a somewhat dry purpose statement and turn it into what feels a lot like a manifesto.

I always recommend developing an Anthem from that purpose statement. This is an emotionally-charged few paragraphs that stoke the fires of passion in your team members and then your customers and prospects.

That Anthem then gets condensed down to a Rallying Cry. This is a short statement (5 - 7 words) that captures the spirit of the anthem. It doesn't need to explain your purpose. Instead, it needs to inspire by capturing the human outcome of your purpose. This Rallying Cry is internal facing – designed to rally all your team members. But if done thoughtfully and executed with emotional clout, it could be turned outward to inspire everyone your organization engages or serves.

It's easy to assume that your purpose is automatically moving. But those you hope to engage may not feel what you feel. Which is why it's worth the effort to find the most emotional expression. Your purpose is too valuable to settle for anything less.