Refine Your Business Vision
By Gail Doby, ASID
CVO and Co-Founder of Gail Doby Coaching & Consulting
If you’ve been running an interior design business for some time, you have a pretty good idea of what works and doesn’t work for you. You’ve achieved a certain level of success and managed to maintain it year in and year out. Having done that (and that’s no small accomplishment!), consider upping your game. What would it take for your firm to be the very best it can be? What is your business vision?
When you started your firm, you had some idea of what you wanted to accomplish. Over time, you’ve probably evolved that idea. Maybe you’ve thought about having a bigger firm, better clients, higher revenues or profits, more varied or bigger projects, more recognition, or branching out into new ventures. Whatever aims you have, whatever you aspire to, whatever excites you when you think about a possible future for your business, the way to get there is by honing in on that vision.
Creating an impelling vision for your business involves more than expressing your hopes and dreams or relying on vague statements like “we want to be the best design firm in X.” Your vision needs to be specific, detailed, focused, aspirational but achievable. The more concrete you can make it, the more chance you have of realizing it.
Imagine having to explain your vision to someone who knows nothing about your business. What are the facts, the details, the differences between where your business is now and what it will be like when you achieve your vision? Say the person you are talking with is a potential partner or investor. What is inspiring about your vision that will get them excited and want to help you to make it come true? What will give them confidence that you’ve chosen the right vision for your business?
When you’ve formulated your vision, share it with your team. Discuss it together. Do they find it inspiring, too? Do they have suggestions about things to add or modify? What challenges do they foresee, and how will you address those?
Be sure to let your team know how crucial they are to achieving the vision and how they will benefit as well. With all of you working toward the same vision, you can make things happen that you only imagined before.
