When Mindy, our founder, hears the words “people aren’t connecting our website” or “we mainly get referrals”, it’s clear that their problem lies in a vision issue. Why? When a business owner is in person, they’re able to engage with customers and answer their questions in real-time. When it’s online, however, if a customer’s questions aren’t easily or quickly answered, they’re much more likely to just become confused and leave.
When working with 20Degrees Media, this is the #1 foundational tool for a business to know and to let our team in on. If we’re not able to pin this down with clear answers, then we won’t have fast results. If a client doesn’t have a concrete vision of their company 1-5 years from now, then helping them achieve their goals simply becomes impossible.
Another issue we frequently find is that, even if there is a vision, it’s not being shared with the rest of the company. Everything is getting done according to the strategy, but since people aren’t even sure of what the outcome should be, the results are rarely what the owner was hoping for.
A red flag we’ve noticed for when a company’s vision isn’t clear is when we send out our questionnaire and receive nothing but short answers which are void of any measurable goals. If all we get are a bunch of words without those measurable goals, then we’ll keep asking questions until they become clear. We can’t deliver what we don’t know. It’s fine to have a vision that’s infused with feelings, but there’s nothing that isn’t measurable.
For example, let’s look at what one’s vision may be for buying a car.
Unclear: I want a car to feel safe, be a pretty color, and stay on the road when it snows. I want a used car with low miles and that gets good gas mileage, and it has to stay within my budget.
Clear: I want a red SUV that has all-season tires, with less than 10k miles and that gets 25 mp gallon. The payments cannot be over $250/month.
If you need step-by-step guidance on crafting a clear mission statement, check out this article that goes more in-depth on not only what a vision statement should contain, but how it should be formatted.
We keep an analysis of the companies that we work with: how much time we spend with them, why reaching a goal went past the deadline and the success rates of our client’s goals. What we have found is that a company without a clear vision is going to have slow results until they can come up with one. That is why from here on out, we always start with a client’s vision before we do any other work with them. We like to see people achieve the intentional and repeatable results they want for their company. That’s the scenario where we all win!
