Focusing on Your Business Vision

Question: There are so many opportunities to start a business. How do I maintain my focus to achieve my goal of becoming an entrepreneur?

Answer: The best advice any entrepreneur can get is: Focus, Structure, and Discipline. Jackie Nagel, Synnovatia has looked at the issue of focus. While the mission of your business centers on what you define as objectives, your vision is the result of all that you desire to accomplish. It is your idea-your future. The #1 exterior house painter on the Cape. The leading landscaping and irrigation professional on the Cape. The leading human resource service provider on the Cape and Islands. The source of digital marketing content. The vision you create for your business is the sustaining force that stimulates innovation, communicates your passion and inspired customers to action. It is the vacuum that pulls you and others forward.

There is an argument in business today as to what is the appropriate planning horizon when owners are impacted by so many issues. Three years, five years, ten years? Some think that business planning is only realistic for 18 months, but your vision might have a three-year horizon. Much of the decision of what your horizon should be depends on the type of business. If your business is plumbing, much of the demand for your services is not based on planned purchases. A homeowner finds a puddle of water in their kitchen; they need you. But if you’re a building contractor focusing on remodeling, the purchases are planned and based on referrals. A different set of environmental factors that impact the decision. In the former, the $90 for an emergency plumbing call comes from one less dinner out, but to remodel a kitchen that needs a contractor can be impacted on how well the stock market is performing so the homeowner has the thousands of dollars it will take to execute the project. What are the environmental factors that impact your business? How you can adjust your vision to them as they change.

As you launch your business, you are so engaged in making it a success your vision doesn’t seem to present itself as important until you are on a path you didn’t intend. It is easy. Ask any entrepreneur how easy it is to take an “opportunity” that comes along that will help generate revenue and takes you down a path that distracts you from your original mission and vision for the business.

Most small businesses on the Cape are focused on sustainability. Generating as much revenue from May to October to maintain themselves through the year. Creating a business vision and having the tools to stay focused on this vision will help in not only sustainability but growth.

Think about these questions as you develop your tools to maintain focus on your business vision:
1. What are you working on that is making a profound difference to you and others?
2. What are the gifts and talents that you are you currently using and not using that you would like to put into your operation?
3. What does creating a vision for your business mean to you?
4. Where do you want to be in three, five, ten years or even twenty years?
5. If you were ten times bolder, what would you like to achieve?
6. What do you want more of or less of?
7. If you only had one more year to live, how would you like to live it?
8. What theme consistently runs through your life?
9. What one thing or thought do you want to leave to others?
Check out: Jackie’s blogs – http://www.synonovatia.com/business-coaching-blog

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