Writing a Business Plan: Part 1

Considerations when crafting vision and mission statements

Do you find crafting a vision statement for your small business or department a challenging exercise? Many clients I work with find this one of the most difficult aspects of writing a business plan. Part of the reason is that it addresses the concept of WHY. Why we are in business and Why our clients or customers choose us rather than our competitors. The vision also encompasses the future strategic desired state we want to achieve in perhaps 1 to 3 years, a concept that is difficult for many to imagine. If we haven’t given much thought to what we want to accomplish 6 months from now, how can we imagine something that’s 12 to 36 months in the future?

I am using a time window of 1 to 3 years here intended for small, young businesses. Larger, well-established businesses have these struggles too, and they may look at 5-to-10-year time windows.

In our coaching and training practice, we adopted the Systems Thinking Approach^® to strategic and business planning from The Haines Centre for Strategic Management. This approach uses 5 simple questions to craft a strategic or business plan, which I have adapted over the years for marketing planning. These questions, while simple, can be very thought-provoking when you take the time to focus and answer additional strategic questions encompassed in each area.

I will break this process down into detail over several blog articles, starting with crafting the vision statement. But first, here are the 5 Systems Thinking Questions and the areas they cover.

Simple 5-Step Framework

• Where do we want to be at some future date? (Your Desired State)
  1. Vision
  2. Mission
  3. Values
  4. Unique Selling Proposition (your positioning)
• How will we know when we get there? (Feedback loop: Quadruple bottom line goals)
  1. Annual revenue
  2. Customer numbers and satisfaction
  3. Employee numbers and satisfaction
  4. Community engagement/support (giving back)
• Where are we today? (Current State: SWOT)
  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Opportunities
  • Threats
• How will we get there? (strategies and actions to connect from current state to vision)
  • 4-5 key strategies
  • At least 3 actions under each strategy
• What many be different in our external world that could affect our plan?
  (Scan of the external environment using the SKEPTIC model)
  • Society (demographic changes in the marketplace)
  • K competition
  • Economy (local, regional, national, etc.) or Ecology (going green)
  • Political (may not apply unless you’re in a regulated industry)
  • Technology (software, social media, digital trends)
  • Industry
  • Customer (changes in buyer behavior)

Desired State

Let’s start with the Desired State and all that it encompasses. First, the vision. This statement is a simple yet powerful statement that reflects your passion for creating the business and what you ultimately want to accomplish. It is visionary and ethereal. When you read it and say it, you should get a tingly feeling all over because it just “feels right”. In a Systems Thinking Approach^®, it does not include specific revenue or customer goals. As Simon Sinek says when he talks about your WHY, it is about your passion, why you exist, and what good you want to contribute to the world.

Some examples might be:
Health company: In three years, we will have contributed to healthier choices so that people can live more balanced and fulfilled lives.

Organic coffee company: We aspire to improve the world so that people experience joy and peace in their lives one cup at a time.

While this is a challenging exercise for teams in large organizations, it may be especially difficult for solopreneurs and young businesses with only a few staff members. All our lives, we are trained to think tactically, not strategically.

The vision statement defines a strategic direction we aspire to; the mission statement defines what we do and how we do it; our values drive the behavior we want to create and follow, and our unique positioning explains what makes us different or unique from our competition in our customer’s eyes. This is all part of the “Desired State” of where we want to be in 1-3 years and is our strategic direction that pulls us forward into the future.

Below is one example from Horan’s book.

Within the next 3 years grow East Way Yoga into a $10 million Northern California provider of on-site workplace yoga classes, inspiring companies and their employees to create a satisfying and fulfilling work/life experience by transforming their moment-to-moment awareness. We will also create and sell new yoga-related DVDs, locally and online, to support the ongoing practice of living life more fully through yoga.

Wow! That first sentence is a mouthful! But it incorporates all the key components. Using a Systems Thinking Approach^®, we might boil that down to the revised statement below listing the revenue goal as one of the strategic measures that answer the question, “How will I know when I get there?” (The vision statement addresses the question, “Where do I want to be at some future date?”) Using a Systems Thinking perspective, the what and how are addressed in the mission statement.

Within the next 3 years grow East Way Yoga into a recognized Northern California provider of on-site workplace yoga classes, inspiring companies and their employees to live life more fully through yoga.

The Mission Statement

We usually have a good idea of our mission. It addresses what problem we solve for our customers, what we do, and who we serve. Although, even the “who we serve” can be a concept many entrepreneurs also struggle with. Some say it’s everyone, especially if they offer products and/or services that serve several demographics. But when you begin to analyze WHO is your best customer, you begin to form a demographic profile of the primary decision-maker. That person is your primary target customer and your marketing needs to address that person’s primary needs and reasons for choosing you. Your marketing strategies also need to address what makes your business unique in that customer’s eyes that causes them to choose you. Understanding your WHY helps to address these areas.

The mission statement in Horan’s book addresses more of Why the business exists (similar to Simon Sinek’s approach) rather than What the business does. It also addresses the ideal customer’s needs and how the business solves those needs. This differs from a Systems Thinking perspective that focuses on What we do and How we do it since the Why is covered in the vision statement.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. It’s important to understand the similarities and differences and choose the approach that fits your needs.

One of the exercises in Horan’s book incorporates a detailed description of the ideal customer, basically filling out a Buyer Persona with demographic details of age, education, ethnicity, sex, income, etc. Another exercise covers more detail about why the ideal customer buys or uses your product or service, what passion you are trying to satisfy in building the business, the beliefs that drive you, the values that drive your behavior, the highest good that will be achieved, and who will benefit, which are all part of your Why.

In the Systems Thinking Approach®, the mission describes what we do, who we serve, and how we run the business; the values are considered separate from the mission and equally important because they drive behavior in the company. The values create the culture. I will address the values and your unique positioning in Part 2.

Ultimately, it’s a process and an exercise you should review yearly to address any carefully considered and necessary adjustments based on changes in outside economic, marketplace, industry, or customer behavior.

If you want a copy of the vision and mission questions document, click here.