"Vision without action is merely dreaming.
Action without vision merely fills the days.
But vision with action can change the world."
—(Anonymous)
What you will need to include
- This involves writing a short sentence of your main vision (i.e., what you are aiming for?) called a vision statement. Alternatively, for the practical-minded business person write what is your mission statement (i.e., the thing that you are doing everyday), or your values statement (i.e., what do you stand for?).
- What do you hope to achieve or strive for within your business?
- Does the sentence motivate you to get up in the morning to go out there and achieve it right now?
Extra information to consider
Mission statements and visions (1) are closely intertwined. You need them both so you will know where you want to go and thus help you make adjustments to ensure you reach the target.
A mission statement is something that shows what it is your business is constantly striving for everyday and can achieve. It is something that helps you focus on your business on a daily basis.
A vision is a big picture of what you want to strive for in 5, 10 and 20 years from now which you hope to achieve after your business is up and running and has been operating for some time. Or, if you are not sure where you want to go, but know what it is you are doing right now that is helping your customers to achieve their goals with your help, or perhaps there is something you are doing right now that is helping to protect the environment or achieve a social goal, write this down instead.
The combination of the two plus your objectives are known as strategic planning in the business world.
What to write in the Mission Statement
We strongly recommend that you write more than just "making money" in your Mission Statement. While making money is an important part of your business and is something you want to strive for, you will need to say things like you want to help people to be happy, to improve the environment we all live in, and believe this is a realistic vision when conducting your business in the real world.
For many practical people, this may seem like "airy-fairy" stuff. However, this is actually quite an important section. Sometimes even the biggest businesses in the world can fail because they quickly lose sight of a clear vision or goal of what it is they hope to achieve or standard they wish to consistently provide to the world.
Dale Cudmore of Digital.com probably said it best when explaining what a mission statement is all about when he said:
"A mission statement is a statement that can help motivate you and anyone working with you, but a poor statement won’t have any effect." (2)
Basically it is a statement that motivates you to get up in the morning and say, "Yep, this is what I want to be doing right now".
An example of a Mission Statement
Here is an example of a good mission statement from Drake Personnel P/L to help get those creative juices flowing in your own mind:
"To support our clients with a standard of training and consulting services that exceeds their expectations.
'To partner with our clients in the transfer of technical skills, knowledge and information which enables and empowers individuals in the achievement of corporate and personal goals.
'To attain standards of quality, efficiency and productivity that contribute to business growth and profitability." (3)
For further information about mission statements, feel free to visit https://digital.com/blog/mission-statements/ to get detailed information about how to write a mission statement.