Creating a Vision and Mission
For any business to succeed, it must know what it is about. It must be able to clearly describe why it is there, and what it is there to achieve. Developing a vision and mission statement is a way of articulating these ideas to yourself, your customers, your employees, and to the world at large.
A Business Vision that Inspires!
If you don’t know where you are heading, then you can make any choice and go in any direction (including backwards). The value in knowing your final destination (your vision) is that you can choose to take the specific paths that lead you there. Your action is intentional and keeps you pointed in the right direction.
Vision statements can take many forms. They answer the question: “What will success look like?” Their main purpose is to articulate the “dream” state of the business. If your business could be everything you dreamed, how would it be? To help you to craft your vision statement, try writing your answers to the following questions:
· Why did I start this business?
· When I move on from this business, what do I want to leave behind?
· What am I really providing for my customers beyond products and services?
· If my business could be everything I dreamed, how would it be?
Here are a few examples of powerful vision statements from the real world:
eHam.net – “To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet”
Coachville – Everyone is a coach
Bill Gates – There will be a personal computer on every desk running Microsoft