Table of Contents
Introduction
Whether you’re a business owner who’s already established in the industry, or a brand new entrepreneur going through the process of creating a startup—creating a vision for your company that’ll help you to beat stress and produce real, positive results is going to be crucial.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 50% of businesses fail within the first five years.
And if you trace many of these failures back to their most basic common denominators, you’ll find that the businesses usually struggled to find their place in the market.
In fact, one of the four main reasons often cited for business failures is a faulty infrastructure or business model.
In other words—many businesses struggle to find their purpose.
They struggle to identify a vision to guide them to the next step of success.
Business isn’t like it used to be.
You can’t throw products on a shelf and just hope that they’ll sell.
The truth of the matter is that the business landscape of the modern world is highly saturated and highly specialized.
And without a vivid vision for your business, you’re going to struggle not only in determining which moves are the right moves—but you’re also going to go through quite a bit of needless stress along the way.
So in this post, you’re going to learn why creating a vision for your business is crucial.
You’re also going to learn how creating a vision and a roadmap for your business is the key to beating stress and producing successful, profitable results.
Being An Entrepreneur Is Stressful
According to a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, 34% of entrepreneurs report feeling ‘worried,’ and 45% report feeling ‘stressed.’
But this number shouldn’t come as any surprise.
The stress of the day to day operations of a business is no small matter for leadership.
And as an entrepreneur, a business owner, a manager, a CEO, etc. You’re going to be faced with many stressful and difficult situations on a daily basis.
And one method for getting on top of that monster (the stress of running and managing your business) is to truly get ahead of the curve and embrace the vision of what you can see your business becoming in the future.
This may sound like a huge leap forward. It may also sound overly simplistic. But hear me out.
A Lot Of Business Owners Start To Feel ‘Trapped’
They get stuck in mediocrity. They get stuck in the individual decisions they need to make to survive that day, that week, that month, or even in that quarter.
And in doing so, they fall behind the curve. Their business starts to take off down the runway ahead of them, careening out of control as it gathers mass and velocity while not being steered in the appropriate direction.
Jeff Bezos, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our modern age, said this about the concept of vision
“I always tell people who think they want to be entrepreneurs, you need a combination of stubborn relentlessness and flexibility. And you have to know when to be which. You need to be stubborn on your vision, because otherwise it’ll be too easy to give up—but you need to be very flexible on the details; because as you go along pursuing your vision, you’ll find that some of your preconceptions were wrong. And you’re going to need to be able to change those things.”
One thing that Jeff Bezos mastered in the early days of Amazon was the process of creating a vivid vision for the future of his company, and then manifesting that vision through sheer force of determination, will, work-ethic, and follow through.
He blended creativity and perseverance with good old-fashioned business sense to figure out which moves he needed to make to keep his business at the forefront of the market.
But there’s a secret here—a secret that a lot of people miss.
Not only does creating a vision help you to make the business more successful overall, but it’s also a sure-fire recipe for helping to overcome stress—because when you have a solid game plan, you can always use that as a road map to help you understand what to do next.
There’s peace to be found in knowing that the actions you’re taking today are going to lead to a better future down the road.
A Lot Of Entrepreneurs Struggle To Identify Their True Vision
Identifying a thorough vision for your company is one of the most difficult tasks you’re going to face as a business owner, entrepreneur, or CEO.
In fact, it could very well be said that this is what makes the greatest difference between ordinary, everyday business owners and world class CEO’s.
World class CEOs, the true leadership trailblazers of the business world, understand that identifying a vision for the future is crucial.
Without a vision and a purpose, it’s impossible to determine where to go, what to do, what to spend money on, where to allocate resources, which professionals to hire, what talent your organization needs, etc.
Far too many business owners think with a short term mindset.
Because they’re constantly playing catch-up, they find themselves stuck in reactive thought processes:
“How can we generate enough revenue to stay out of the red this month? What marketing options do we have that’ll work fast, so that we can catch up from last quarter? How are we going to make payroll next quarter if things don’t pick up?”
But see, you’ve already closed yourself into a box when you start to think like this.
And not only does this hurt your business’s ability to succeed—it also stresses you out.
It’s vitally important to be thinking further ahead than this.
Granted, this takes a lot of work.
Thinking ahead on this level will require you to dig deep into your vision, and call upon not only your artistic creativity as an entrepreneur, but also your tenacity and strength as a leader.
This is the area of business growth where you take control of the ‘ship’ of your business, and you steer it forward to safer waters to continue the journey.
But it’s impossible to steer or navigate a ship without some kind of a navigational chart to guide you—and that’s what a vision and a plan for your business will provide.
Arnold Schwarzenegger said it like this:
“Vision creates faith and faith creates willpower. With faith there is no anxiety and no doubt—just absolute confidence in yourself.”
Having A Written Vision Can Help You And Your Employees To Hone-In On Your Purpose
Having a written vision for your business is fundamental to its success.
Many people underestimate this—not only on a personal level, but also at the organizational level.
It’s also true that a lot of business owners underestimate the importance that having a vision holds for the employees and the talent within their organizations as well.
See, as a leader, it’s important for you to be able to look ahead to the future.
But this is also vitally important for your employees.
Only 23% of employees say that leadership always communicates their vision clearly.
This is a staggering statistic.
But it’s not altogether a surprise, either.
Some of the greatest companies in history were built by managers and employees who not only understood the vision for the business, but who also believed that trust, loyalty, and commitment were crucial to its success.
It’s also important to understand that it’s nearly impossible to inspire this kind of trust and loyalty without creating a written vision and sharing the ‘roadmap’ with your team.
You must be able to demonstrate your overarching goals and expectations are.
You must be able to demonstrate how each individual employee is making a massive difference in the world and in the company by performing their allocated tasks to a higher standard of quality.
Studies have shown that when employees understand the positive impact of their work, they’re more satisfied with their work and more productive.
As a business owner, this responsibility falls to you.
This kind of attention to detail is sorely lacking in leadership today, but it presents you with an incredible opportunity to close the cap and to be the kind of leader your organization truly needs to carry it into the future.
Establish Principles That Will Guide You Toward Your Vision
At this point, you might be thinking to yourself:
“Wow. I don’t have that kind of vision, but I want to develop it. I understand that it’s important and I’m determined to do whatever it takes to make my business succeed.”
Awesome. This is absolutely the first step that leads to entrepreneurs and business owners taking their businesses from 6 or 7 figures, to that ‘8 figure’ level and beyond.
However, it’s going to take some seriously high level thinking and in-depth soul searching to figure out where you’re struggling.
You’re going to need to come to a fundamental and accurate understanding of your market, and you’re going to need to come to an honest understanding of where your organization is actually missing the mark.
You’re also going to have to identify your limitations as a leader, and you’re going to have to make a detailed plan for how to get your business from where it is now, to where you want it to be in the future.
And yes, of course, profitability is a huge part of the equation.
But it’s the part of the equation that comes after you’ve determined your purpose, your vision, and your mission.
It’s the part of the equation that comes after laying out a written, detailed strategy for where your business is going to be 2, 3, or 4 quarters from now.
But it’s also true that you’re going to have to establish some grounding principles to help guide you toward the realization of those goals.
Why Establishing Business Principles Is Important
Business principles are technically defined as foundational guidelines/rules that help your business to solve problems and make decisions.
Establishing business principles is important—not only to you as a business owner, but also to your employees, your management, and your leadership.
There must be a unifying, cohesive spirit of enthusiasm regarding the future direction of your business—and this enthusiasm must be shared, at least to a certain extent, by your team.
If this is missing, your organization is going to lack passion.
It’s going to lack the kind of ambition required to solve customer problems and provide in-depth solutions.
Once again, remember that you’re operating in a saturated market—even if you’ve managed to find a relatively untapped corner of a very specific niche marketplace.
Rest assured that there are at least half a dozen up-and-coming startups that are hungry to take over your current market share.
Obviously, you need to be at the top of your game to keep this from happening.
But without an in-depth written guide and framework dictating how you’re going to take your business from point A, to point B, to point C, to point D, and beyond—you’re going to continue to spin your wheels, and you’re going to feel lost.
But even worse, your management—and subsequently, your talent—is going to feel lost as well.
This isn’t a mistake that any modern business can afford to make.
Conclusion
Creating a vision for your business is going to help you in innumerable ways.
It’s going to help you personally by helping you to overcome a lot of stress.
But it’s also going to help you to produce positive results—not just in your own performance, but also in how your team performs as well.
However, if you don’t make a plan, and if you don’t create a vision, and if you don’t execute on that vision, you’re going to continue to spin your wheels.
You’re going to continue to struggle to gain traction.
For best results, start taking this ‘future vision’ thing as seriously as possible.
Consider taking a couple of days to really comb through your current vision and goal list, and be prepared to update it and clarify things if you feel like you’ve lost your way.
You can even enlist the help of a business coach to give you an outside perspective and guide you in creating a written plan.
But you must create a value system to help you establish new and even better principles. These principles will help to guide the running of your business, and keep you on track.
It’s vitally important that you do not neglect this fundamental step as you grow your company from 6-7 figures to 8 figures and beyond.
