Chantal

Running a business takes up a lot of time and energy. There?s a lot to do and a lot to think about. Sometimes you might find that you start to lose energy or enthusiasm for what you do. So how do you find your focus? How do you inject some inspiration into what you do, to help you keep driving your business forward?

The answer could be to create a new vision and mission for your business. A vision is what your business is really about ? a sentence that says exactly what you do and who you do it for. It?s a statement that everyone in your business buys into and believes in; it?s a statement that is developed by everyone in your business. Your mission is how you do what you do ? another line or two that explains to everyone both inside and outside your business, exactly how you achieve your vision.

At Appletree we recently spent half a day with Joolz Lewis, the Corporate Hippy, creating a new vision and mission for the business. We first talked about what inspires us all about working at Appletree. We all shared our thoughts on why we love coming into work every day. Then we got creative! Joolz gave us a pile of magazines, lots of coloured paper and pens, some lovely things to cut out stick down and some scissors and glue for cutting out and sticking down! She asked us all to create a ?picture? of how we saw the business in 5 years time. The results were all very different and surprising ? we have some very talented artists at Appletree! Some of the results are shown here.

Next, one at a time, we talked through our creations to the rest of the team. As we did, Joolz wrote down the key messages that appeared. There were a number of themes that came up across the whole team ? which shows that we are all already pulling in the same direction. From those key words and ideas, she helped us to create our new vision and mission. And here they are.

Our Vision ? Appletree supports and drives growth for service-based companies that are committed to building their businesses

Our Mission ? We do this by being trusted advisers, delivering creative, integrated marketing solutions that achieve our clients? objectives

Two simple lines that explain what we do, who we do it for and how we achieve it ? simple! And to us, it?s really inspiring! It?s given us focus, because we now have three strategic priorities for this year, which came out of the process. They are:

• To build a strong reputation for providing innovative and dynamic marketing solutions (so that we can add those two words to our mission by the end of this 2011)
• To increase our average client size (so we can deliver each client a wider mix of marketing solutions, all integrated and working together)
• To identify and develop strategic partnerships (so that we can deliver innovative, dynamic and integrated marketing solutions to those larger clients)

It?s going to be a busy year, but at least we know where we?re going and what we can to achieve during the year. Watch this space for news and developments!

When you have both a vision and a mission for your business, you will find your focus. You?ll be able to inject masses of inspiration into your business and fill it with energy and enthusiasm.

Do you have a vision and a mission for your business this year?