The importance of creating and revising your Vision Statement for your venture to create profit.
Yeap, that's right. Money is the benefit or compensation for the great business you are bringing to your clients, to your community, to the world, and not its ultimate goal.
Arguably, everyone is interested in making money and that could be the main reason for many people to consider creating or buying a business. However, I would argue that this is one of the common reasons of entrepreneurial struggle, or even failure, because that shouldn't be the ultimate goal of an organisation.
In fact, if you were to create a different type of organisation such as a new NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation or Non-Profit Organisation) or if you were in charge of creating a new public service for your local government, preparing your Vision Statement should be your starting point because any of these entities would have to have a purpose, a reason to exist, a goal not necessarily related to making money but to providing a product or a service that will solve something or at least will benefit someone.
Don't I need a business idea first, before creating a Vision Statement?
If you are still looking for business ideas, basically you shouldn't be searching for them. You should be creating them yourself and the Vision Statement will help you with it and with every future decision in your venture. Actually, I have checked many forums where members ask for business ideas that would generate lots of money, but the replies are mostly about side hustles which of course are valid ideas, yet they have nothing to do with creating a proper business, but with freelancing or hobbies that generate side money. Hence, those are not business ideas. The business idea lies in your Vision of the ideal world you want to live in. You need to create a Vision Statement to consolidate your Business idea.
And if I may add, a great Vision Statement should help you develop a great Brand, which in turn will bring you customers and profits. In this context, your Brand is more than your trade mark, patent or registration. Your Brand represents your business, and a business with a strong reputable Brand will bring large volumes of customers and revenue.
But developing a brand from scratch is definitely a hard task. How would you that?
That's the point, a great Vision Statement would be made up of the Vision, Purpose, Values and Mission of the Brand that will represent your business.
Do I need to consider the Brand of my business in my Vision Statement even before writing my Business Plan?
Consider this, your Business Brand will be a central element of your own company. The Brand will let everyone easily identify your organisation and in fact, its perceived value. A quick example would be the brand AirBnB. A simple Google Search with the words "Airbnb enterprise value" shows a Market Valuation of USD55.35B as of 8th November 2022:
Now, let me ask you: How many hotels, houses, apartments do they have? I believe none. Therefore, where is this value coming from?
Well, business valuations are rather complex and may not be so straightforward to estimate. Although most likely, this value comes from their volume of clients and suppliers, their profits, their know-how, their operating model, their technology, their unique business model, their talented staff, their positioning in the market but also from the value of their Brand.
Think of this: Competitors could arguably imitate AirBnB business models, their operations, they could persuade and snatch their customers and suppliers, they could even poach their staff, but undoubtedly would need substantial cash if they wanted to buy AirBnB's Brand, including the name, the logo and its public recognition.
No matter the industry, product, customer or size, a company’s brand is its single most important asset. Your brand isn’t just your logo. It’s how you interact with the world — from your customers to your employees — and it all stems from the brand. So, what do you do with your most important asset? You protect and grow it.
By Blair Brady on Forbes.com Blog 24 Feb 2020
Let's not get confused: Brand Management is actually an entirely different topic. But because the core of your business activities revolve around the brand, writing about what your business will deliver, how it will do it, where and why it will exist, can tremendously help you with any next steps such as preparing the business plan, customer segmentation, design the required products and services and even design the Brand itself.
How do I write a Vision Statement in line with my Brand?
This is a short version of the elements that you will need to consider to write up your Vision Statement. In principle, you should follow this order:
Vision: What products and/or services will be offered. Which clients will benefit from them. What problem or necessity your business is solving. What benefits will your business bring.
Purpose: Why these products and/or services will be offered. Why clients will benefit from them. Why the problem or necessity exists and why the world is not managing it well. Why your business will be the one to exceed in this aspect.
Values: How these products and/or services will be offered. How clients will benefit from them. How stakeholders are impacted. How the environment is impacted. How clients are impacted. How suppliers and partners are impacted.
Mission: How many products and/or services will be offered. When the products and/or services will be offered. How many clients and When clients will benefit from them. The achievable metrics and realistic timelines to achieve the Vision.
Hopefully you have paid attention to the order in which the different parts of the statement should be written: It wouldn't make sense to start writing about the goals or the Mission of the startup in first place if it is not clear what or why you want to embark on this journey, that is, if its Purpose is not clear. Hence, this should be the order to enable a consistent story.
You should try to fit your Vision Statement in one page. Writing up your Vision Statement is an iterative process that needs to be revisited and revised constantly. Your Vision Statement is a living document which will drive your business plans, your Brand Identify and your goals.
Please notice that you don't even need to think of a name for your Startup at this stage, because these statements will give you hints about the right name to choose. This should also help you with putting together the company's logo, motto even the colours and the graphics that you will need to consider. The Vision Statement should drive everything else.
But if you already have a business and even a brand with a logo and portfolio of clients, then this is just a reminder of the importance of checking your Vision Statement and verifying whether its elements are already represented in the brand, in the messages conveyed to your stakeholders, in your daily activities, in the ethos of your organisation.
For inspiration, the site https://brandfolder.com/resources/brand-pillars/ can help out as it contains numerous examples of different brands and the way they phrased their missions, their brand promise, their mission.
For my Startup, I thought I had to start creating a Business Plan in first place.
To reiterate, the answer is NO. Your Vision Statement is the first step of the startup creation. Guy Kawasaki explains this phenomenally well in the YouTube video below, which lasts less than 3 minutes. This is what I think most business coaches get wrong: You don't start by preparing your Business Plan, but you start by preparing your Vision Statement.
Key Takeaways
All ventures, no matter if they are For-Profit or Non-Profit Organisations, need a Vision Statement with a clear Vision, Purpose, Values and Mission.
The Objective of your For-Profit Business is, contradictory, not to make money but to solve a problem or provide a service that will satisfy a necessity, which in turn will generate profits.
The Vision Statement will contribute to your Brand Development, essential for profit generation.
The Vision within your Vision Statement needs to clearly articulate what change you want to see happening in the world. Your business should then target the whole problem or at least contribute to resolving part of it.
All organisations need a reason to exist. This has to be clearly written in the Purpose of your Vision Statement.
Your Brand will have core Values based on your Vision Statement. Your Brand represents your Business and will directly impact a large number of people, including clients, suppliers, partners but also indirectly to your society, your government, your environment and your regional economy.
Your Vision Statement will have a Mission which will drive your business plans by considering the achievable metrics and realistic timelines. It represents your immediate, medium and long-term goals.
Your Vision Statement is a living document which needs to be revised, revisited and even rewritten periodically.
So, are you ready to write up your Vision Statement? Do you agree with this post? Are you an entrepreneur with a clear Vision Statement and you find it useful for your daily activities? Is your Brand connected to your Vision Statement? Or are you struggling to write up your Vision Statement? Or perhaps your organisation is offering products to a small niche of clients which doesn't require any kind of Vision Statement?
Leave your comments and questions below and I will personally answer your doubts.
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