Developing an Effective Vision Statement
By Dr. Ivan R. Misner
If you have little or no experience with referral marketing, it would be a mistake to jump
into action without preparing yourself. Central to the referral-marketing process is
getting people to send you referrals. To do so, they must know exactly what you do—
what product or service you provide or make, how and under what conditions you
provide it, how well you do it, and in what ways you are better at what you do than your
competitors are.
You have to communicate this information to your sources. And to communicate
effectively, you must know the same things. It is important for entrepreneurs to have a
clear vision for their businesses; you have to know what your motivation is, what your
goals are and what you plan to accomplish with the businesses you start. Equally
important is your ability to share that vision with others effectively in a well-thought-out
vision statement, especially when you are cultivating relationships that you want to result
in business referrals.
Before you map out where you’re going to take your business with a referral marketing
campaign, pause and get a clear picture of where your business stands today. Try to
answer in simple terms, the following questions:
Why are you in business?
What do you sell?
Who are your customers?
How well do you compete?
Answering these questions for yourself will help you tell others what your business is
about. This will make you more effective at implementing your comprehensive and
systematic referral system.
How you communicate with others is very powerful. Lou Cassara talks about how
important being clear with your purpose is. In From Selling to Serving, he states: “Your
PVS (personal value statement) provides the opportunity for your clients, staff and family
to market you effectively. You can build a distribution channel of people who can
effectively communicate your value.”
It may seem to be a no-brainer; don’t we all know what we do for a living? Yes, of
course, most of us do. But can you communicate it clearly and simply to your potential
referral sources? When you try to do so, you may find that you’re not quite as clear on
the facts as you thought you were. And if you can’t tell your potential referral sources
what you do or what you sell in a way that motivates them to find prospects for you, how
can they send you good referrals?
We are so accustomed to the ubiquitous question: “what do you do?” at mixers, business
events, seminars, etc…, etc… that we hardly give a thought to how we are answering that
question. It is not enough to simply tell your contacts what label you wear, for example,
“I own and operate a sporting goods store.” In order to deepen the relationship, you must
be able to talk about what you do in a way that, as Lou says, “communicates the magic of
your vision expressed through your words.”
Here are four points to bear in mind when beginning to develop an effective vision
statement about who you are and what you do that will result in attracting the kind of
business referrals you are currently dreaming of:
1. Be passionate about what you do. In order for others to feel the value you have
to offer them and the people they are going to refer to you, they need to know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are passionate about what you do. When
that passion is lacking, or is not communicated to your referral sources, they will
never be confident that you have what it takes to serve their referrals 110%. Look
at who you are and what you do and determine what it is about that career that
makes you passionate. Put your vision statement in the form of a cause. In the
example above of “I own and operate a sporting goods store”, you might rephrase
that to: “I provide what you need for sport and leisure, so that you can have the
time of your life.” Phrasing your vision statement in terms that turns what you do
into how passionate you are to help others’ dreams come true makes you more
attractive to those referrals.
2. Be concise when sharing your vision statement. Your vision statement will be
effective when you can make it short and to the point. It should not be a lengthy,
hard-to-remember paragraph. In Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels advocates
that a vision statement be of such a length that it can be written on a t-shirt. Strive
for a statement that conveys your passion and your motivation for doing what you
do in measured, powerful words. Take the time to work this out; include your
staff when preparing your vision statement.
3. Share the ownership of the vision statement with your staff. It is amazing
when you have a staff who catches the vision because you have created together.
This just enhances the referral process. When you train your staff to think in
terms of the vision statement and not simply what their roles in the day-to-day
operations of the business are, they will also be attracting the type of business you
want to draw into the venture. There are many things you can be doing to
empower your staff to share your vision for the greater service and function of
your business. Let them know, each and every one of them, how valuable to the
success of your enterprise they all are. The more they can see and feel that they
are part of the team that is bringing to life the vision of the company, the more
effective they will be in cultivating referrals for the business.
4. Believe in what you are “visioning.” You may find, as you start the process of
developing an effective vision statement for your company, you are not convinced
that what you are doing holds any passion for you. A couple of friends of mine,
Chris Attwood and Janet Bray Attwood, have developed a test you will find in
their book entitled The Passion Test, that can help you determine just what it is
that makes you passionate. Explore this in light of what business you are starting
or find yourself still in after 20 years, and evaluate where it falls on the scale of
things about which you are passionate. Maybe it’s time to rethink where you find
yourself. Referrals will flow to you with so much more ease and consistency
when you are able to really believe in the vision you cast in the marketplace as
you network and grow the relationships necessary to build a word-of-mouth-based
business.
What do I tell people about who I am and what I do? I am changing the way the world
does business by teaching that givers gain. Write THAT on a t-shirt!
Dr. Ivan Misner is the Founder and Chairman of BNI, the world's largest business
networking organization, which has more than 4,900 chapters in 37 countries. Dr.
Misner is also the author of several books, including the most recent addition to the
bestselling Masters Series—Masters of Sales (www.mastersbooks.com), and the New
York Times bestseller TRUTH OR DELUSION? (www.truthordelusion.com); and he is
the Senior Partner for the Referral Institute (www.referralinstitute.com), a referral
training company with operations around the world.