Do you have a Vision for your Business?

“A business without a vision is directionless. It lacks purpose,” writes Michael Gerber in his latest book E-Myth Mastery. You cannot plan the future of your business if you do not have a vision. It is the starting point of any business growth plan.

The vision is your unique dream. It is the image of what you want your business to become. It provides the pull factor. The vision gives you the big picture. It keeps you on track as you develop strategies and take steps to grow the business. It gives you the place to focus on when overwhelmed by the mass trivia that invades our business lives. The vision puts purpose into the business.

The clearer your vision, the more powerful your focus. Suddenly things will happen that take you closer to your destination. By clearly articulating what your future looks and feels like you begin to do things with a purpose in mind. It is not magic! It is the practical result of visualization.

Developing your business vision is easy because all you have to do is dream! Developing your business vision is difficult because you must refine your dream into one memorable statement! You do not have to have a particular time frame in mind. It is a state of being that will be achieved at some point in the future. However, if you prefer, you can certainly fix a time frame; three years, five years, ten years, whatever.

So start with the dreaming. This is very important - assume there are no obstacles and everything is possible. Now jot down in point form anything that describes your ideal picture of your business and personal lives. This is a left-brain exercise. Don’t question anything; don’t hamper your thinking by identifying obstacles; let your mind wander and take you places you had never imagined.

Your dream list might contain phrases like:

• we have multiple offices
• we are the experts in our field
• customers come to us
• we are successful
• our market is global
• the company is healthy and wealthy
• we have a balanced life style
• we are travelling

You are the owner of your business and so you and your business are like one entity. If your business is not providing you with the life that you want then it is not achieving its key purpose. Therefore, you should have personal statements such as the last two examples above.

Live with your dream list for some time. Add to it; remove from it; enhance it; review it with people; improve it; make it more explicit. In addition, as the list grows, start grading it. Cross out the points that have no importance. Rate the remaining points into very important (VI), important (I) and not so important (NSI). Keep working on it until you are completely satisfied that you have identified the very important descriptions of your vision.

From these start writing your vision statement. This is not an easy task so take your time and anticipate that you will rewrite it a number of times before it accurately reflects your vision in a manner that you find appealing and memorable. We have two suggestions. One, keep the statement as short as possible so that you can remember it – in fact try to keep it to one sentence. And two, write the statement in the present tense so that you can feel and touch the end result. After all, tomorrow never comes and, similarly, vision statements written in the future never come.

Now that you are the proud new owner of a Vision Statement, it is time to complete your strategic plans. As Michael Gerber writes in his E-Myth Mastery: “A vision without a plan is only a hope. A vision needs a plan to make it come alive, to make it reality.”

Good luck with your dreams and remember: To make a great dream come true, you must first have a great dream!

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