In theory this is one of the first things that new business owners should…in reality it is often something that comes much later after the initial excitement of getting things off the ground.
However, having a defined Vision and Values does make the success of many parts of business easier to achieve, from creating a business plan, to recruiting team members and even sales.
From a marketing perspective having a clear Vision and Values enables you to decide on your product and service strategy, define your target audience, create a marketing plan, and ultimately helps you make a decision on every part of your marketing moving forward.
So, knowing how important this is, you may be asking yourself ‘How do I create my Vision and Values for my business’? Here are some key steps
Dream Board
To create a Vision for your business you need a Destination. There is no point plodding through each day of work without an end in sight or dream goal to work towards. So, start by creating a Dream Board. We do this with vibrant images, but you may be more comfortable with a list or even a spider diagram or a brainstorming session may help get your thoughts down onto a page. Visualise how you want your life to be, first of all…what will your home, hobbies, family, friends look like in a year, in five years, in ten years. Now what do you need your business to look like to achieve this. Do you want to be travelling globally for your business or would you like to be working from home. Most importantly how much income will you need? How can your business give you this income? Do you need to expand your offerings? Potentially partner with another business? Recruit more team members? Once you know what you want the future to look like you can start brainstorming on what your business will look like.
Who are you?
All businesses are ignited by either one person or sometimes a couple of people who work in partnership and thrive in an entrepreneurial environment. The uniqueness of the business is based on what is important to those people. Usually, the person or people will have worked in the industry or a related sector and will have been disappointed in the way things are done or felt they could do better and know they can provide a better, more innovative service. It is important that your business fulfils who you are and what is important to you, so they next stage of defining your Vision and Mission is to define the things that are important to you. We suggest you create a list of 12 personal values that are important to you. Things you think other people would say about you. Things you think your customers value or will value about your service.
Define the Culture
Now you know your values you can start to create your Culture document. How do these values convert into things that you want in your business. You can break this down into things YOU want in your business, things your CLIENTS will want from your business and things your TEAM will want from their employment with you. Now you are starting to build a picture of the culture of your business.
Core Values
From this culture document you can create six Core Value Statements about your business. These can be shared with customers and team members and of course as the business owner or owners you can look back at these regularly and ask…’are we still embodying these values.
The Future
Next comes the visualisation of your future business. Imagine you were writing an article about your business in ten years’ time. What would the article say. What does the business look like? Who works there? What would your clients say about your business?
Vision
OK now finally you can create one simple sentence that encompasses what your business is. It should include.
- Who – the target audience of your business
- What – the products or services that you offer
- Uniqueness – what is unique about your business
Mission
Now for your mission which explains the Vision in more detail. It should reflect your Core Values and include a BIG goal. This is a description of your finished and ideal business, every positive and amazing aspect of what you do and will attract the right client base to you and your business, this will be used as a tool to excite all of your existing and potential clients.
Now you have your Vision and Mission defined you can use these in building every aspect of your business, but crucially you have what you need to create your marketing strategy and make the decisions on marketing that will make a real difference to your business success.
See what our Vison and Values look like.
Or if you would like help developing your Vision and Values get in touch.