Archive for Mission Statement
The Secret to Building Your Business from the Inside Out
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The Secret to Building Your Business from the Inside Out
As a woman entrepreneur, have you ever wondered what the secret is for building business success? Sure, it’s important to have a mission statement, a business plan, and a product or service that meets the needs of your niche market. It’s also essential that you have funding to back your venture, a support system in place to guide and mentor you along your journey, and savvy business acumen.
Yet even if you have all these things, you still may not hold the key. What is the key to business success for women? The secret is to build your business from the inside out. From a place inside that you as a woman intuitively know and understand. From your Inner Samurai. If you are an entrepreneurial woman committed to doing work that is meaningful and important if you see your work as a mission, service, or calling if your goal is to help other people transform their lives and make a difference in the world, then the key to making that happen is to connect with your Inner Samurai. Connect with my Inner Samurai? What’s that?
Connecting to your Inner Samurai means connecting to your “inner knower”. This will empower you with the strength you will need on your journey as you build a successful business.
All You Need to Know about Your Inner Samurai
Who? Your Inner Samurai is known by many names. It has been called the voice within, the inner knower, the still small voice, God Self, Soul, God Within, and Spirit, to name a few.
What? Your Inner Samurai is best defined by describing its opposite – the voice inside the head, the monkey mind, the ego. By contrast, your Inner Samurai is the inner voice, the voice within. It is the quiet, sure, confident, strong, vast, and powerful voice of inner knowing. Being able to tell the difference between the rationalizing, explaining, blaming, and chattering voice inside your head and the calm, sure, wise voice of your Inner Samurai will make all the difference to your business success.
Where? Your Inner Samurai is aptly named because it is the voice within. Inner because the voice is deep within your being to distinguish it from the voice inside your head and Samurai because of how strong and powerful it is. Understanding who your Inner Samurai is and knowing where to connect with it are vital for your business success.
Why? Everyone has an inner voice. It is that part of us that is the repository of all our life experiences, hopes, and dreams. It’s so important to get in touch with our Inner Samurai because it is our greatest source of strength and knowing. It is the seat of our wisdom. It is the place of our extraordinary uniqueness. It exists to remind us of who we are. How? The most challenging part of connecting with your Inner Samurai is realizing how it communicates with you. Your Inner Samurai has a gentle, yet very recognizable, way of doing so – I like to call it “pulsing.” When you go inward and ask your Inner Samurai a question, you will feel a pulse answering you. This pulse will have one of two distinct qualities. It will feel like either a yes or a no.
When? Once you know who, what, where, why, and how, the last thing you need to know is when. When is the best time to tune in and feel for the pulse of your Inner Samurai? The answer is always. Make your Inner Samurai the primary voice you listen to. Turn to others for support. Turn inward for guidance. When in doubt between your feelings and thoughts, go with the pulse. Your Inner Samurai will never lead you astray, do you wrong, or leave you hanging. Your Inner Samurai pulse is right 100%25 of the time. So, enjoy writing your mission statement and your business plan. Get creative making your product or service the best it can be. Develop positive relationships with your investors and supporters. And don’t forget the most important relationship of all – the relationship with your Inner Samurai. It’s the key to building your business success from the inside out.
Mission Statements For Small Business
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According to the “Marketing Essentials” school book, a mission statement is “A brief paragraph or two that describes the ultimate goals of a company.” What is your company about? What is your intent by being in business? What do you stand by when you do business?
Asking yourself the questions above can help you determine what you want to communicate to a general audience about your company and it’s goals. A mission statement can help you determine a tag line. A mission statement can be presented on your Web site, in your business plan, marketing plan, displayed on your wall in your business, presented in a press release or any other number of advertising and marketing efforts.
Many times, a small business is a one-man show, so why develop a mission statement? Having a brief description of the ultimate goals of your company and why it exists helps you develop your 30-second elevator speech, present succinct communications to your audience, and identify your products or services being offered. In essence, developing your mission statement helps you think more clearly.
My mission statement originally was “to provide reasonably priced professional writing and graphic design services to new and small businesses.” First, I made sure I was priced reasonably, then I targeted my audience of small businesses and further developed the messages I would communicate based on the audience. As my business has developed and I have found different audiences, my mission statement has adjusted to “provide reasonably priced professional technical and marketing writing and graphic design services to businesses of all sizes.”
A mission statement generally reflects the goals of a business. My goals adjusted slightly in that my target audience became broader in order to include larger companies that I can do contract work for in either technical documentation or marketing writing. That slight change enabled me to see where I needed to update my Web site and change the information presented, or at least how the information is presented.
Once you have researched, developed and written your mission statement, it’s done, right? Wrong. Just as your business and marketing plan is a living, dynamic document to be re-evaluated on a regular basis for a number of reasons, your mission statement needs to be evaluated and reviewed on a regular basis as well. With your business growth changes may occur, or you may need to be reminded of your focus, purpose, and mission on a regular basis in order to make decisions that are best for the business direction.
Sometimes small businesses are a work in progress. Remember that when you are a new entrepreneur, you don’t always know everything and as you receive feedback and input from your audience, peers and yourself, listen to that information to help develop your goals and focus, which eventually strengthens your mission statement as you improve your direction. Word of caution: Don’t allow others’ opinions to make your goals and mission statement seem like a moving target. The purpose of that mission statement is to communicate to them and others where you are planted in your direction and business focus as well as what is important to your business.