Many people talk about vision and why you need to have a vision. In fact, many people would say that you must have a vision larger than yourself…. much larger! So how do we create a vision for ourselves and how do we make those visions become realities?
Vision is extremely important in so many ways and I think one of the biggest ways personally that a vision is important is that it helps guide us on important decisions. Having a clear vision and clearly defined values can help you to be more decisive when it comes to critical business decisions.
Some other areas that having a vision comes into play are with company culture (I talked about this a few weeks ago). If you have employees and they believe in your company vision, then it will show in their work. Vision also comes into play when building your team. If your employees understand your vision, they will try to be part of this vision and apply it to both work and their personal lives.
The final way that vision shows through, is through your brand! Having a clear vision will strengthen your brand identity. Having a vision will help you create a business that clearly defines your brand (and your target market). Even in tough times, you should stick to your brand’s identity and core values because they are your vision.
If you are having trouble with figuring out your vision, the easiest way to do that is to write a vision statement. There are some steps you can take that will help with this and the first step is to define your “why”. Why did you start in business/start your business? What are you trying to accomplish? Your vision statement will probably talk about making others life easier.
Then you should put your “why” into words and include things like what you do, your target market and where you operate. You should have others review your vision statement too! They may help you take a step back and see things from a broader view! The final step is to publish your vision statement…it will reinforce the importance of vision in your organization!
