You go to Google. You type “small business strategy” or “brand strategy worksheet” or something of the sort.
You are bombarded with generic — often regurgitated content — of mission, vision, values. So you create your statements and you post a blog post, or maybe an Instagram post about these.
Naturally, because that’s the most objective way to put your word out there. No one really told you what to do with these, right?
So, you feel frustrated and lost, right? What can you do to better understand how to transform these statements into real life situations?
Well, you can’t. Not the way you are thinking. See, you went short term / external, when these things are long term / internal. Saying you are on a mission isn’t the actual mission.
You have to live it.
Look at the mission and vision as guides, as end points. Mission being the short term goal, and the vision the long term goal.
What do you have to do to make it happen? These are guides, not PR. Customers don’t care about that jazz. But, while you are at it, remember to never go against your values.
Even if you work alone, you will need to be reminded on why you are doing the things you are doing, and where you want to get, much like in your personal life goals.
Sure, you can have a version of it that you can put up on your Instagram bio, but these will be customer centric, “what is in it for them” and not “I’m the best expert at X”. Be careful with that.
So, to actually put it all in practice? Well, execute. Strategy is execution. Writing a plan for your launches but never executing a single release isn’t strategy, now, is it? How does that support your mission, huh? Imagine if Napoleon only talked about war but never actually fought. He wouldn’t be a general, would he? The entirety of Europe would be different in 200 years later.
Strategy is linked to company mission by execution, as simply as that.