Why it’s so important to have a vision for your business

With a marketing background my default position when thinking about business is to understand what the vision is.

Where do you want to be in 3-5 years time? What is your why? Where is your journey going to take you?

I’m not talking about your marketing communications calendar for the next 12 months.  I still find it interesting that when you ask people what their vision is for their business they find it so difficult to think about the big picture vision and start to talk about how many blog posts they are going to write, what social media they are going to focus on, the press release they are going to write, something about the website. The list goes on.  Of course these are all critical pieces of information and important for planning a 12 month marketing & advertising plan, so its good to talk about them.  But lets never lose sight of your vision.

I’ve said before the sometimes conflicting short term and long term goals are a challenge many business owners are faced with every day.  I need to move some stock so I’m going to drop the price on this product and get it out of here, we need to maintain market share and that means more volume and lower prices.  To make this work we are going to have to focus all our marketing spend on promoting these lower prices.  This goes on for months and sometimes years.  And in tough times its even more prominent. Forget about those brand ad’s, forget about our brand proposition, just make sure we don’t lose market share.  Forget about our value proposition, about what makes us unique.  Surely people know by now, we don’t need to keep talking about it.

Wrong.

Whether you are an entrepreneur or micro-business owner where it’s only you and you have a shoestring marketing budget, or you are one of the biggest retailers in the land, your long term vision needs to remain the driving force, your brand should always be considered.  Neglect your brand at your peril.  Lose sight of your vision and you will wake up one morning totally confused about why you are even doing what you are.

If my vision is to help people achieve their business dreams by sharing what I know in the most authentic way possible, while providing an abundant and flexible life for my family, then I know how to approach every client, every day, every challenge, every doubter and every opportunity.  Of course I know that I have to pay the mortgage, but does that mean I have to compromise on what my vision for my business is? No.  Sure there are things we need to do to put food on the table, and I totally subscribe to that, but my decisions about my business are informed by my vision, not by desperation.  I tackle the balance between short & long term goals with an open mind and belief in the vision that I have.  And I make sure that even when I have challenges that insist I focus on the short term in my responses, I never lose sight of my vision.  And whatever I do to satisfy that short term will never compromise or confuse my long term vision in my mind or in the minds of those that matter to my business.

Why is it so important to have this long term vision? If you don’t you’ll be running your business without a compass or without any reality checks in place.

It’d be like trying to kick a goal with no goal posts.  Imagine that?

Thats just too hard and too confusing.

Do you have a clear vision for your business? Share it with me right here in the comments if you want to – and I might even hold you accountable to it 😉

Thanks for for taking a moment to read – I appreciate it.

Kate xo