Check Your Navigation...Where Are YOU Headed?

Remember those college road trips to nowhere? You remember...the ones where you decide on a Friday afternoon that you need a road trip but no one knows where to go? Just you and your best pals cruising the open highway...destination unknown.

As a contrast, captains of cruise ships have set directions to navigate on the open seas to a certain, scheduled destination. Without the navigational directions, their passengers would never reach their destination.

In your business, your vision is your destination and your goals are your navigational directions. Without them, you're on the road to nowhere. Knowing where your business is headed is almost as important as how you get there.

Here are some tips on how to develop your vision:

1. Create an outcome. I know this sounds odd, starting from the end of the story rather than the beginning. Start looking at what you would like your business to achieve as if you were looking back at it already having done it. Be limitless. Write down what it is that you have accomplished in your vision, describe what it looks like.

2. Look at what you’ve written. Does it accurately describe what you want? If it doesn’t, go back to step one until you have it right.

3. List three values and think about what they mean for your business.

4. Review what you have written concerning your vision and the three values and create a statement about what your business is.

5. Now write to your mission statement. This is what do you want to do in terms of your vision. Your vision is where you see yourself and your mission is who you are. Your goals are how you get there.

Next week I'll go further into developing your goals for your business. In the meantime, send me a postcard from your destination!

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Jennifer Wong is a successful solo entreprenuer who began her business over 10 years ago, pioneering the way for many successful internet entrepreneurs. She offers home-based business coaching and mentorship programs and a biweekly ezine from her website, www.thehomebizbuzz.com.

What is YOUR Vision?

Recently, a client inadvertendly reminded me of a life lesson I learned when planning my wedding over 12 years ago. This client was struggling with someone she hired to produce a video for her...he just was NOT getting what she really wanted and she found herself giving in to his vision at certain points and was really frustrated.

My lesson on this came when my now mother-in-law offered to have someone she knew make my perfect wedding dress. This seamstress was a friend of her sisters. It was a sticky situation...you're marrying her son and she was pretty insistent, you get the picture. After sending my measurements and the picture of the dress I was dreaming of and my requirements, I waited. Two weeks before the wedding, the box arrived.

It was a yellow satin dress that had more shoulder pads than what an NFL player wears, with more lace than you would find ANYWHERE. Complete opposite of what I envisioned for MY wedding dress. Well, try telling that to your future mother-in-law. She made ME tell this seamstress, who had worked so hard to make something so so wrong for me. It was one of the hardest things I had to do, but it was MY dress and MY vision.

So, the moral of the story is to stick to YOUR vision for your business and not to what someone else envisions for your business. Here are some tips on how to do that:

1. Make sure that you are clear on what your vision is. If you don't know what you want, how can someone else possibly know what you want?
2. Listen to what they are saying...sometimes having someone repeat back what they understand helps you know to retool what you're saying.
3. Remember that you are responsible for your own vision...if it turns out to be not quite right, there's always room to change it and fine-tune it until you truly get it right!

Later this week we'll talk about how to create your vision, so stay tuned!

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Jennifer Wong is an experienced solo entrepreneur who started her business 10 years ago, long before many were even aware of the power of working virtually. To sign up for her weekly ezine with tips on how to stay focused on your vision, sign up at: http://www.thehomebizbuzz.com.