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A business plan is often referred as the roadmap to success. Anyone who runs an existing business or is in the process of starting up understands a sound business plan is the initial step for success. It will give a precise description of what the business will achieve, how it will be achieved, why and by whom.

Writing a business plan will help the entrepreneur organize his expectations for the business and develop a framework that will guide him in running the business.

Moreover, the business plan will become a relevant tool in making future decisions, especially those that will impact the business over the long period.

A business plan has several sections, however, when crafting your business plan, take time to define your mission and vision as well as your goals and objectives. These sections will clearly state the core of your existence and define what you want to accomplish and what your business actually stood for.

Before you can actually develop these sections, you need to identify your core values. Consider the stakeholders that your company is accountable.

The stakeholders may include the owner, employees, customers, suppliers, and investors. Your core values will be the foundation of your mission and vision as well as your goals and objectives.

Mission Statement

A mission is defined as an important purpose, accompanied by a strong conviction. Therefore, your mission statement must clearly state the purpose of your existence.

It must be about you and should create a connection with both the customers and the employees. Mention a specific goal that is tangible and should boost the value proposition of your business.

Often, generic, extremely long mission statements are confusing and may become useless. Brief and concise, single sentence mission statements are more preferred.

Vision Statement

Vision is defined as the anticipation for that which will come to be. Your vision statement must clearly impact how you envision your business.

It asserts your expectations; therefore, it should be an awesome, inspiring and hopeful statement of your commitment and dedication.

Make your vision statement detailed and compelling. It should point out why your company exists. It must also paint a clear picture of your intended outcome.

Vision statements that are generic or utterly unreasonable can become uninspiring and totally bland.

Business Goals and Objectives

Simply put, your goals and objectives will help you figure out where you’re going and help in executing or setting your vision and mission for your business.

Your business plan must clearly lay out, both your long-term and short-term goals. When setting your business goals and objective, it is important to make them SMART and logical.

This means that you need to make your goals Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and with a Time Frame.

Goals are generally qualitative and tend to focus on achieving the general picture of the business intentions. Primarily, goals are centered on customer service, market positioning and business growth.

Objectives, on the other hand, are centered on the practical daily operations anchored in the quantitative measure of business figures such as the number of customers, costs, revenue and other product-related metrics.

Conclusion

Having a sound business plan is like having a road map when embarking on a road trip. A road map will guide the traveler in making decisions how to reach his destination and to make his travel itinerary.

In a similar fashion, a business plan encapsulates the very core of your company’s existence, and will help you plan out and decide as you navigate your business towards success.

We often overlook understanding whether what we’re doing on a daily basis is actually as far as we can get? The fact that we are content with the work we pursue on a daily basis, is the biggest obstacle we create for ourselves. This is not the case with leaders, as they’re always looking for ways to get a job done better. Following those lines, here are the top five qualities extracted from incredible leaders.

5 attribute the help you improve your leadership skills:

1. Confident streak- A confident leader is an inspiring individual. He/she inspires the subordinates to set an expectation higher than what they usually do. A streak of confidence in the leader will have the employees to believe in the fact that setting a higher expectation will derive better results. Enrolling in a leadership training program will help you get the right amount of confidence to lead your team gracefully.

2. Passion for your job- Nothing is a stronger drive for any human, as much as passion. Passion for one’s job is something that is seen loud and clear. It is about believing that what you’re doing is important and that it will impact you and a host of others positively. A team remains motivated when a leader is passionate about his work.

3. Team first- A true leader will let his/ her team take the credit for success, all on account of their hard work. It is this support that helps the team members’ work towards achieving success relentlessly. Holding your team as the most important asset will help them prove your confidence in them worth it. The commitment level will see a rise and that will impact your overall success positively.

4. Assign vital tasks- Just because you are the leader, does not make you any superior to the potential of the lot. You need to delegate crucial work among your team members and make them feel worthy. This will also give you a fair idea of the prospective your team holds.

5. Build trust- No team can really function smoothly without building a bond of trust among every team member. Since you are the leader, you are solely responsible to provide your team with the trust factor that they will weave among themselves. Remember that trust is the basic principle of leadership.

I was facilitating an on-site training for a business recently. Several times during the training the request was made by the employees, “for managers and leaders to acknowledge the positive.”

I have found this to be a common theme in most every business. Employees often feel like the only time they get attention is when they are doing something wrong instead of when they are doing things right.

This is why I intentionally choose to begin my leadership trainings by having the owner acknowledge something that they sincerely appreciate about each of the leaders.

In one training in particular, I took this one step further. I encouraged each of the leaders to then share with their team something that they genuinely appreciated about each member of their team.

One of the leaders said, “You know it’s interesting… while I often thank my employees at the end of the day, I don’t thank them for anything in particular. I just say, “thank you.” I’ve realized the value and importance in truly acknowledging the specifics around what they have done that is worthy of acknowledgement.”

Think about a time when someone gave you a compliment (at work or in your personal life). Didn’t it feel great? Did you experience an immediate surge of energy and feel your spirits lift?

Acknowledgement is a gift to both the giver and receiver because both people end up feeling more energized as a result.

Here are 3 simple tips to powerfully acknowledge another person…

Start with a simple thank you.

Tell them specifically why you are acknowledging them. Share the details. Don’t just say, “thank you for doing a great job today.” Tell them exactly what they did that made you realize that they had done a great job.

Tell them how their actions impacted you or another person. For example, “I noticed how you took the time to give that customer your full attention today, even though you had lots of other things to do. I could tell that they left the store feeling heard and that you really made a difference for them. It made me feel excited to have someone like you on my team who really cares about our customers.”

I want to invite you to set the intention to acknowledge at least two people today (identify one person in your business and one person in your personal life).