Annie Infinite

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As I am in the middle of writing my course in Fractal Magic MarketingTM, I have had some very interesting conversations with people based around getting your fractal started. Interestingly when I have mentioned that at the heart of this system, it’s foundation fractal must be your businesses vision and mission statements and your own, I have seen various reactions to this statement.

Some of the people I have spoken to have nodded enthusiastically in agreement, others have  avoided eye contact and still others have justified their reasons for not having this in place. My point of view is this; if you have a business and you do not know where it is going or why, then you cannot hope to get anywhere. A vision for what you hope to achieve and a stating those outcomes as a mission has to be the first step to any journey.

I cannot possibly fly to Melbourne without knowing my destination and what I hope to achieve, it may be that my only outcome is to spend some time on my own, doing nothing, it may be to catch up with my friends in the southern city, or a conference I am attending but I know why I am going and where I am going. In fact I cannot get up from my computer and go lie down on my couch in front of the TV without knowing my outcome – to lie on my couch and get some down time watching the idiot box and picturing myself doing just that.

This step is so important!

Some questions to ask are:

1. What does your business stand for?
2. What does your business solve? (for your customers/clients)
3. What is your super power?

The next step is making sure that the business plan you have in place is congruent with your vision and mission. Once you have decided on all that it is time to begin to create your branding statements and marketing messages.

What words do you like to use that reflect your vision and mission statements?

What are the keywords in your niche and for your site?

All your marketing messages must from this point on reflect your vision and mission statements in some way. You may never allow anyone to actually see your mission statement or your vision statement, however they need to be implicit and explicit in everything you say and do online. This is who your business is and what it stands for and this is how you brand your business, it is what makes you and your business unique  and that is the most important thing you can do in this world of sensory overload.

I love Michael Gerber’s statement in his book “Awakening the Entrepreneur Within”,

The passion of the entrepreneur is not to run a successful business someone else invented – but to invent a unique business that becomes successful.

Inventing a unique business is an act of creation, this act is what stirs the pot of motivation, passion and action, without it we are lost. Like an artist who is fuelled by the thought of the beauty he is bringing forth into the world we too are bringing forth something beautiful into the world in the form of a business that fills a need and brings us joy. It might take time and careful crafting yet we continue to build it knowing we are creating something that comes from deep within.

The painter has to wrestle with colour, canvas and brushes, the sculptor with stone and chisel… yet the creative act, their ‘vision’ of what they are going to create, transends time. It is the same for every manifestation of being. Erich Fromm, To Have or To Be

It is our vision and mission that will impel us forward when things get hard, when things aren’t perfect, when the job becomes monotonous, just imagining our outcomes or reading through our statements will once again give life to our project and wings to our soul.

So if you haven’t got a vision or a mission for your business yet, it is time to begin. Start by just allowing yourself to imagine what you hope to achieve, how you are going to feel when you do and what it is inside of you that makes that so important. From this place ask yourself a few pertinent questions like the ones abov e and then and only then allow your vision to come flowing out of you and onto the page in front of you.

It may take a few tweaks and revisions to get it just right, but you will know when it is because just reading it will make your passion come alive for what you do. I’d like to quote Michael Gerber one more time before I go,

Without a clearly defined vision, the dream is aborted… a dream is critical to the journey; a vision is essential for the dream to become a reality; this is the journey.

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