A business vision statement for your new or redefined business can be written in 3 steps. Vision statements are important for businesses, just as developing a vision for yourself by using a vision board is important. Your business vision statement guides you in setting goals for your business. This, in turn, provides a roadmap to more profitability for your business. Without that roadmap, you are just creating a job for yourself and not a profitable career and business.
As you start your business or redefine your current business, whether your business is online, consulting, or brick-and-mortar, I bet you think, “I’ll do my thing and they will come”! But, if all the pieces of the business puzzle are not in place, you will continually be searching. You’ll search for the right next move, the right next product to add, the right next formula to become profitable. The steps and behind the scenes business components I share in this post will help get your business off to a targeted start in earning a profit and building your business.
Define or Redefine Your Business
Writing your business vision statement in 3 steps will help you define or redefine your business. I used these exact 3 steps to write my vision when I redefined my business. These steps will help you, as it did me, put the parts of the puzzle in place today and set your business on its course to profitability. In a perfect world, we all have the idea that we open a business and just run it the same for ever and ever and make a huge profit. We then hire more people to work for us. We make more money, add more products, make more money. Well, you get the idea!
But, sometimes a business must pivot and change–sometimes owners must change everything about their business. Take what happened during Covid for example. Many businesses had to change EVERYTHING! It is never too late to define your new business or pivot your existing business for the better.
In the first part of this series, I covered how to write your mission statement. There is some debate of which should come first–the mission statement or the vision statement. No, the debate for this subject is not as great a debate as the which came first–the chicken or the egg? But, important, nonetheless. You can write your vision statement before your mission statement, but in my opinion, you need to know where you’ve been or are before you know where you are going.
Vision Statement Dynamics
A mission statement is all about where your business is in the moment. It too can change over time, just as your vision can change over time. A business mission statement is a statement about the goals, values, and objectives of your business. It aids in responding to changes you need to make in your business. It also aligns with your vision for your business. Your vision is where you want to take your business, it is well, your vision, your dream for your business. If you would like to pick up at the beginning of this series, read how to write your mission statement in this post Mission Statement in 3 Easy Steps – Material Thingz.
Is Your 5 Year Plan Doable?
Your business vision statement should be bold and ambitious. It should inspire you to reach high so you can begin now to accomplish where you want to be in say, 5 years. One important thing about a vision statement is that it will help guide you in your business journey to help make sure your business is around in 5 years. You see, goals are attached to the vision statement. I know you are probably so tired of hearing about SMART goals, but if your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based, you have a winning formula for achieving your business goals and making a profit. Your goals should actually be derived from what you want to accomplish from your vision for your business.
Make Your Vision Attainable
Ambition is a funny thing! Sometimes we are ambitious to the point of setting our sights on the unachievable, so in writing your vision statement, be ambitious. But your vision must be attainable while still being challenging. Afterall, why write a vision statement if you simply write a statement about what you have already accomplished? The vision statement, like the mission statement, is a living document, changeable as your company grows and changes.
To Go Global, Or Not!
Huge companies focus on global impact when developing their company vision statement. If thinking global about your business is too much, too far a reach, think city, state, or region. Case in point, you own a local clothing shop that sells discounted high-end fashions. You just want to serve primarily customers living in the surrounding community, city and county. To include the world in your vision would create a misplaced focus.
On the other hand, suppose your shop only sells baby clothes made from sustainable organic cotton. In this case, your focus is on serving the world through using better materials to produce the clothing even though you may only serve your community. One impacts the customers nearby shopping for nicer clothing at a discount and the other focuses on providing baby clothing that positively impacts the world through the process the clothing is manufactured.
Pivoting Your Business Vision–not a bad thing
You can always change your statement to incorporate a wider geographical area. I promise you those big companies changed their mission and vision statements many times before they got to the global stage. A vision simply communicates where your business is going next and provides an avenue to reach that next height.
Designing Your Vision Statement
Writing your vision statement is not difficult when you follow a short easy formula because you should already know what you want to accomplish in your business. Yep, we all want to make more money, but besides that, what do you want to accomplish on a deeper level? What do you want to “stand” for? What heights do you want your business to achieve? And how will get there?
Developing your vision statement should not contradict your mission statement. Therefore, both statements should align and complement each other so they don’t confuse the reader. They should be cohesive with your core values, beliefs, and culture. You can read the discussion of all the above in the post I already referenced about developing your mission statement.
The Formula is a Simple One
- Express your company’s aspirations, more meaningful than making a profit
- Mention who and what you are targeting as part of your plan
- Include your big impact on the geographical area you want to serve
First of all, let’s take a look at an example of a vision statement and a mission statement from a well-known company. Subsequently, you will notice their mission statement and vision statement each complement the other and the two are aligned. LinkedIn’s mission statement: Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. And their vision statement is: Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.
Do you see how the mission statement is current, more individualized and states what the company’s values are and how it impacts those the company serves? Next, moving to the vision of the company, they aspire to 2 points. In similar fashion, not only do they help a person become more economically fit, ultimately they strive to make all people in the global workforce more economically fit. Of course, all this is achieved only if LinkedIn’s services are chosen.
More Business Components
If you are just beginning your business journey or you are pivoting your business to take a different route, I have a workbook in my Etsy shop that will aid you in getting off to the right start. Just tap the title of the workbook, Vision Statement in 3 Easy Steps, to explore my shop and the partner workbook, Mission Statement in 3 Easy Steps. In the next post, I will cover putting it altogether to write goals for your business.
