What separates an average leader from a visionary? What separates your business from a Best Buy, McDonalds, or Dell? The reason may not just be their huge budgets, worldwide marketing campaigns, or many, many storefronts. Remember, they all started out just like you with a single idea, product, and/or store.
A grand plan - even to your skeptics - raises the value, opinion, and, yes, expectations of your company. It shows your ambition and people look at what you’re doing as more than just another small enterprise. From Businessweek.com, Carmine Gallo writes about how being a visionary can transform your whole business plan.
Using examples of Starbucks, Napa Valley Winery, Cold Stone Creamery, and even the Moon landing, we can see how unique ideas, with far reaching vision, can make something big from little to nothing. Gallo breaks down being a visionary into three bullet points; the first being "Make no little plans." A grand plan can galvanize your people. It can help them to see past their limits and strive to accomplish what was once thought as impossible.
"Have a grand purpose." Once you have your vision of where you want to be, you then need a way to get there, or something specific your business will do and become to fulfill your vision. In the case of Starbucks, CEO Howard Shultz saw their stores as a place to go between home and work. What will your business become that sets it apart?
"A scoop of vision." Being the visionary, your plans and ideas are the fuel that will drive your company to something extraordinary. Big schemes don’t come easy for everybody, nor does the fortitude to accept them and risk all to make them happen. You will have unbelievers, but with solid planning and a glistening goal, they will come around.
Nothing beats an excellent business plan, but you’ve got to have a place to go. Reach for the stars, grab that brass ring, and take your business to new heights.
