Vision Accomplished

Posted on | July 22, 2008 |

I came across something I wrote … now that I think about it, I’m not even sure when I wrote it. I’m glad I found it, though; it’s helpful to remind myself (and you) to think about this stuff every now and then. It’s particularly important to think about them at times when you’re so swamped that you’re in danger of forgetting why you decided to start doing this in the first place.

It’s been said truthfully that starting and running a microbusiness is comparable to being a parent. One very cogent example is the fact that everybody seems to want to give you advice.

Friends, family, colleagues and associates, and even strangers on the bus if you give them the chance — everybody wants to give you the benefit of their experience (or lack thereof) and tell you how you should be running your business.

Sometimes, that can be a good thing. Most of the time, though, you can safely assume that other people’s advice is simply going to be a poor fit for you and your firm. I know that because, however well they may understand your value proposition, your cash flow issues, your marketing strategies and everything else, my hunch is that they know very little about your vision.

And if they don’t ‘get’ your vision, then nothing else they know matters.

Your vision defines your relationship with your business. It dictates your style of doing business and how that is a reflection of who you are and what kinds of things matter to you. Your vision is what makes your business different from every other firm in your industry sector, no matter how identical to thousands of other firms it may appear.

Your vision is what gets you out of bed in the morning and it’s what lets you look yourself in the mirror every day, because it’s your vision that informs every business decision you make.

But, of course, you probably don’t have your vision written down anywhere in your business plan or your marketing plan or anywhere else. There might be a hint or two about it in your mission statement but most of us don’t commit that vision to paper. It is too delicate and too precious for that.

It would be a pretty rare thing indeed for any of those well-meaning advisors to know anything at all about your vision. And yet, just because people make assumptions about what we want — or what we should want — it’s pretty common for said well-meaning advisors to do their best to squash your vision.

You can’t let them do that.

Every microbusiness owner is a leader, even if they lead an organization that consists of only one person. They are leaders to the degree that they point themselves and their firms in a certain direction.

And, to the degree that the journey really is much, much more important than the destination, your vision is mission-critical. Without your vision, you have no direction.

Hang onto it … no matter what “they” say.

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Category: Rants and Ruminations


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Dawn Rivers Baker, microbusiness journalistDawn Rivers Baker, aka The Journal Blogger, is the editor and publisher of The MicroEnterprise Journal, and the self-proclaimed Socrates of the small business blogosphere. See her official bio to learn more.


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