Defining the vision of a business

Let’s take a trip down memory lane! Think back to when you started your business.

• You saw an opportunity
• You thoroughly researched your market and what the competition was doing
• You mapped out how you could add real value to your customers
• You had a clear idea about what you wanted to achieve and where your business was heading.

Perhaps you’re now two or three years into your entrepreneurial journey? Life is hectic, you’re absorbed in the day-to-day running of your business, and you’ve lost sight of the bigger picture? You may even feel like your business is running you, not the other way round! Suddenly it seems like you may have taken a couple of detours, got a little lost, and you’re not sure how to get back on track. The good news is that as Business Mentor guiding businesses across Bristol, Bath and Somerset, this is exactly the type of story I hear every day.

So do you know what you need? You need some SPAM!

No, not the processed meat or the junk emails you receive every day. I mean See – Plan – Action – Measure.

In this blog, I would like to concentrate on the first two: See and Plan. So, let’s explore these in more detail!

See

How can you get anywhere if you don’t know the destination? To understand where your business is going, you need to revisit your vision. Perhaps it has changed slightly since you started out, or maybe it’s precisely the same. Either way, you need to sit down, clearly outline where you are heading and reacquaint yourself with your ‘Why’. This might include some of your ‘life vision’ too.

As a business owner, you will know all too well that it becomes more than just a job, and you need a strong ‘Why’ to keep motivating you to come to work every day and put in all those long hours. Revisiting your vision and getting it clear in your head once more, is a fantastic way to focus your attention and help inform all the decisions that you will make going forward.

Plan

Once you have a clear idea of WHERE you are going, you can start to think about HOW you are going to get there and achieve your vision. Imagine getting into a car and not knowing where you were going, just driving around aimlessly with no map. You wouldn’t, would you? You would define your destination and map out a route. Well, it’s the same in business! However, as I drive around Bristol and Bath mentoring businesses, I find a large number of those businesses have no clear destination, and certainly not a plan to get there.

I recommend creating your future financial forecast. Is that a groan I hear?! Many people feel that forecasting is a bit of a waste of time and that it’s just guesswork. Obviously, a business doesn’t have a crystal ball, and you can’t predict the future, so forecasting can include a lot of guesswork, but you can mitigate the guesswork to a large extent, and anyway what’s the alternative? There really isn’t one, is there?

Separating your total turnover into different revenue streams is a great place to start. This could be by customer type, product or service. But forecasting these separately can help you clearly map out how you will get to your destination.

Running a business brings many challenges, and it can sometimes feel like you are stuck, and your business is not what you signed up for. By revisiting your vision and being confident that you have a clear route to achieve it can be extremely motivating.

Book your complimentary mentoring session

As a business mentor and coach based in Somerset, I support small businesses throughout the South West of England, including those based in Bristol and Bath. I offer a completely free, no obligation 90-minute session during which my sole objective is to offer some valuable guidance. I would love to have an initial chat, learn more about you and your business vision, and see how we could work together. So, give me a call and let’s get started!

Nigel Browne
Director & Business Mentor
Bristol & South West

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