Creating a Vision for Your Business

Where is your business going?  You must begin a business with the end in mind.  In order to get from point A to point B, must know where both of those points are.  If you don’t define the end goal, you have very little hope of ever getting there.  Strategy is about planning and defining the straight line between those two points.  Rather than taking the scenic route, a good strategy gets you from where you are to where you want to go in the most efficient way possible.  You can’t draw that straight line if you haven’t figured out where and what point B is.  I find a lot of entrepreneurs try to skip ahead and do marketing for their business before they have defined where their desired end point is.  This is impractical and more importantly a mistake that can doom your business’ potential.  There are plenty of marketing methods you can utilize.  Sure marketing is an important business strategy but what you say, how you say it, and who you say it to, all depend on clearly defining your point B.  You can spend your money and your efforts on marketing all day long, but if you don’t know what the goal of these efforts is then that spend can be largely waste.  And small businesses do not have room for waste.  So what is your vision?  Create a clear picture in your mind.  You can not acquire what you cannot see.  That is why visualization techniques are so effective.  Follow our vision formula and your business is sure to flourish.

Create your business vision.

There first step in creating your business vision is to clearly define what that future looks like.  You do this by traveling forward in time to point B and then looking back on what has transpired to get you there.  It is important to write this out, not just think it, to further solidify it in your subconscious mind.  This should be in paragraph format and include as much rich detail and as many emotional words as possible.  It is best to write it as if this future vision has already occurred and you are expressing gratitude for the events that have unfolded and the things you have accomplished.  Here is an example:  I am so happy now that I have expanded my business successfully using a licensee model.  I have 30 high caliber licensees that do a fantastic job for clients and the company earns royalties off their efforts.  I have written and published 5 books best selling books and have 3 more in process for this year.  I have put solid systems and processes in place so that anything that is repetitive is automated.  I have hired excellent people who enjoy their work and are passionate about contributing to the goals of the organization.  I am so productive with this high powered team.  I only work about 40 hours a week and enjoy plenty of free time with friends and family on a regular basis.  Business has grown 50% a year over the past 5 years and is on track to continue.  Our message resonates with our target audience and our products and services provide a good value to our customers.  Word of mouth has become a powerful marketing agent for us.  We are making the world a better place by empowering entrepreneurs everywhere to achieve a flourishing business of their own.  I make more than $500,000 a year which I deserve and enjoy and I can now give back to others by supporting causes that I believe in. 

Next you should use this looking back on the future exercise to develop a purpose statement for your role within the company and all of the other roles within the company.  Many entrepreneurs struggle with wearing all the hats in the organization.  It is impossible to be highly effective when you are playing 17 different roles.  Instead create a purpose for each role.  Draw up an organizational chart, with each of the essential roles on it; even if all of the jobs are held by you right now, it is important to separate them out.  Then you can gradually start delegating out these roles.  Without separating them out, your delegation will occur more haphazardly, a task here and there, with no real role definition and no purpose of that role.  The format of the purpose statement should be:  The X position does Y in order to Z. 

Set specific goals. 

You can do this by breaking out pieces of the vision you articulated into specific and measurable goals.  Many people talk of goal setting.  While obviously setting goals is vital to your success, setting them is just the beginning.  The setting part is relatively easy, it’s the accomplishing part that people struggle with.  To make your goals more powerful, give each of your goals a why and a how.  A great formula to use is the 1-3-5.  In this format, the 1 is your goal, the 3 is your whys and the 5 is your how’s.  So for each goal, you will state the goal, then give 3 “whys” for the goal, why do you want this goal, what will it allow you to have in your life, to enjoy, to feel, to experience, lastly, come up with 5 how’s.  5 ways that you are going to accomplish this one goal.  Make your whys motivating and your how’s effective.  Write these out on a card and post them somewhere for you to see everyday.  You can put them on your desk or on your bathroom mirror or on the dashboard of your car, but make sure they’re in a place you will see them everyday.  Focus on achieving your goal because of your whys, feel them, and using your how’s to execute them.    

Set your priorities.

The next thing to do is to set your priorities.  If you try to do everything all at once, you will never accomplish any of it.   In fact you will never even make a dent.  Prioritizing does not mean giving up on some things; it simply means putting things in order, which means some things go first and others go behind them.  A business is made up of many critical elements, which make up its success.  You must tackle these in an organized and orderly manner, as opposed to haphazardly throwing your attention here and there and bouncing around to all of them.  Some things must go on the back burner temporarily if you are to accomplish anything at all.  So, decide what your most pressing priority is and ask yourself if a genie appeared and granted you one wish for your business that you could have this month, what would it be? 

Imagine that the genie would appear each month and ask you for one wish again, but you only got one wish a month.  If you knew you would get 12 wishes, no more and no less, each month for 12 months straight, would you plan out their use?  I hope that you would.  Think of it like a chess match.  Start with this month as move number one, what would be your best one move this month?  Know your outcome; know your purpose behind that wish.  Look at it with this perpetual futuristic view.  Phrase your wish in this format:  I wish to accomplish X, which will look like Y, so that then I can do Z.  What would be the one thing that if you could make it happen this month that would put you in a strong position to achieve your next mini-milestone?  Then put all your efforts on accomplishing that one first thing.  Except for keeping up with maintenance activities, don’t worry about all the other big picture priorities, focus on finishing that one with the goal of achieving your desired outcome of that one thing. 

Next flex your discipline muscles.

Just do it is not as easy as it sounds.  But now that we have narrowed the playing field for you a bit by getting you to focus on the high value activities and accomplishments that are necessary to get you closer to your goal, just doing it should become a bit easier.

 Discipline is about consistency and routine.  For the most part the majority of our day we do on autopilot.  We just do what we are in the habit of doing, with little thought to it.  You need to program those things that you have decided to do into your autopilot function.  This means not procrastinating and then having to tackle some big overwhelming mound of work all at once.  Instead you should bite off manageable pieces and schedule them into your day to day routine so that they become habits.  The easiest way to become disciplined is to schedule it in to your day.  When a reporter asked Oprah how she managed to run five miles everyday she responded, “I recommit to it everyday.”  You must recommit to tasks you deem worthy everyday until your business is flourishing.  Doing certain things at the same time each day or on the same day of the week each week, you will start to instill these habits into your business.  Set aside a specific time in your schedule as your “Just do it time.”  And commit to making strides toward your goal during those set hours.  Commit yourself to the future of your business, not just what is going on today but to for the future.  The commitment that you make to the future of your business will be what carries you effortlessly towards achieving it. 

By making a conscious decision to work on your business and not in it, your business can become a flourishing business.  For more information about how to create business vision, visit www.flourishingbusiness.com.