As a business leader, it’s your job to craft a vision for your business. Once you know what that is, you need to be able to communicate it to a wide audience including your customers and your employees. Even the interns need to know. Why? Because your need to share a vision that everyone understands, can relate to – and ultimately believe in. Here are five ways to communicate your business vision.
Share Your Vision With Everyone. To be effective, you’ll need to rally people around your vision. You will need to keep saying it to remind your team of your message to reinforce what you are trying to achieve. You’ll need to do this constantly to keep everyone focused. Don’t worry about sounding like a broken record, after all it is your business.
Use Storytelling: When you tell a story, you give life to your vision. The telling of stories creates trust, touches people’s hearts and minds, and serves as a reminder of the vision. It is also a great way to make your vision relatable to anyone. Your team will find it a lot easier to repeat a story than a vision statement.
Don’t be Afraid to Share: Sometimes we, as entrepreneurs come up with ideas that may seem far-fetched to others. Do not let that stop you from telling people your vision. When you speak it out loud, you speak it into existence. I remember back in 2007, when I told people I was going to be “America’s #1 Small Business Expert,” at the time I am sure some of them may have thought, can she really do that? or they may have thought I was crazy. We’ll who looks crazy now? You must be willing to share ideas people have never heard of.
Be Brief: Learn to share your vision like it is an elevator pitch. Every business leader needs to be able to communicate the vision in a clear, brief way. Can you describe your compelling vision in the amount of time you have during a typical elevator ride? Your pitch should highlight your solution, your target audience and your niche focus. Try to keep it to two minutes of less.
Be Flexible: Don’t feel like you have to have all the answers. As an entrepreneur one of the most important things that you must do is evolve. Be sure to create dialogue around your message so that people feel comfortable to share suggestions and help you take your vision to the next level.
Put out calls to action. Don’t just tell people what you imagine for the future, ask for their help in making it a reality, and be specific about what you want people to do and why.
When you are think about how to communicate your vision first, create a strong vision and communicate it to everyone. Use storytelling to help people visualize your vision. Have the courage to share your vision. Be brief, and willing to take suggestions that could take your vision to the next level. When you put out calls to action, and assign specific roles you want your team to play in your success.
Are you looking for ways to better communicate with your target customers? Don’t miss my FREE webinar sponsored by Pitney Bowes March 29th 1-2pm ET Register today http://www2.pbsmartessentials.com/how-to-better-communicate-with-your-customers
For more tips on how start or grow your small business subscribe to Melinda Emerson’s blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com.
Melinda F. Emerson, known to many as SmallBizLady is one of America’s leading small business experts. As a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, and small business coach, she develops audio, video and written content to fulfill her mission to end small business failure. As CEO of Quintessence Multimedia, Melinda educates entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies on subjects including small business start-up, business development and social media marketing. Forbes Magazine named her #1 woman for entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. She hosts #SmallBizChat Wednesdays on Twitter 8-9pm ET for emerging entrepreneurs. She also publishes a resource blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com Melinda is also bestseller author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works.
As usual, great post. It bears repeating!
I found the parts about using storytelling and being flexible the most applicable to me. It’s easy to just talk about your vision, but (and I always need to be reminded of this) people find narratives more compelling; they are more effective at lowering barriers because they communicate the humanity of the storyteller.
Flexibility is one of the main advantages the small business person has. We are agile, and can adjust to suit the pace of change better than large entities that have to fight against the inertia of corporate culture.
Thanks again for your blog – I always find it fortifying.
This was AWESOME! As a new business owner I get so afraid of vision snatchers. This was great insight and useful material. Great work!
Rebecca–
You are exactly who I wrote this blog for. I am so glad it spoke to you and helped you get clear about your business.
Here’s to you,
Melinda
Great article Melinda! You are convincing and I’ll sure take the advice!
Melinda ! You are doing wonderful job , I have small business in south africa for installing cupboards and kitchens units , shopfitting.by your advice I going to open a furniture shop . May good God bless you.
Kone–
Thank you so much for your comment. I am so excited to tell you that I’m coming to South Africa this Summer in August to speak in Capetown and Durbin. I hope you will come see me.
Here’s to your business success.
Melinda F. Emerson
Dear sir
I am so pleased to contact you I wish if you could help me . because I am in need of English language skills also I need to have a good communication with others and business people too
so please if you could give me a hand I would be grateful
sorry I do not have a website
I hope you get my idea and give me your reply as soon as possible
Best Wishes from Hassan
Great post, this information is educational, I am glad i found your site. This information will help on my web development business and online ads and business magazine, you are a star 🙂