"Your Ticket to Success"

From September 2013

With leadership training in a couple of weeks and the new Leadership Teams taking over the first of October, it is time to think about the mission and vision statements for your chapter.

A Vision Statement is your ticket to success. A photograph in words of your Chapter's future, it provides the inspiration for the overall activities and the Chapter's strategic decisions.

It's the Vision Statement that provides the destination for the journey, and without a destination, how can you plan the route and arrive at your destination and achieve your goal(s)?

If you don't have a vision statement, don't panic. I bet you do have a vision of what you want your Chapter to accomplish; you just need to articulate and formalize it. 

Here's how to write a vision statement:

1) Examine Your Purpose/Mission.

Why do we exist? What is it you do well? How do you do it? 

   

Here is the Mission Statement for BNI:

Our mission is to help members increase their business through a structured, positive, and

professional "Word-of-Mouth" program that enables them to develop long-term, meaningful relationships with quality business professionals.

 

2) Dare to dream.

Before you can travel to the moon you have to look up at the stars. To write a vision statement, focus on the basics of your mission statement and extrapolate; where do you want your Chapter to be a year from now?  5 years from now?  What will your Chapter have accomplished? (i.e. Want to be a 40 person Chapter? What would that look like?)

Forming a mental picture will help. If you have trouble visualizing, mentally script your own news byte. Imagine that you are being profiled on the news. What are you and your Chapter being recognized for? For instance, imagine your current Chapter being featured on the news for adding it's 40^th member.

3) Shape your vision statement; apply the formula.

Maybe when you were picturing the future of your Chapter, you saw a whole list of achievements scroll by or imagined all sorts of disjointed clips. To write a vision statement, you need to transfer your vision into a usable form. Use the following formula to shape your vision statement:

A year from now, our Chapter will ___________________ by ________________________.

Using this formula to write a vision statement will force you to choose what you consider to be the most important accomplishment for Your Chapter and give you a time frame to accomplish it.

For instance, here's a sample vision statement:

A Year from now, Our Chapter will be the top grossing Chapter in BNI Georgia by consistently passing over 40 referrals per week to their Chapter's over 40 members.

4) Commit to your vision statement.

• Take action to make your vision statement come true: Use it as the basis of your Chapter's planning.

As the vision statement provides your destination, the 'where you want to get to', all of your goals and strategies will focus on making it happen. It's the natural basis for all of your business planning.

• Keep your vision statement alive: Share it with members, potential members, and BNI Leadership.  

If you just tell it to people once, your vision statement will fade and disappear. So besides talking about it, keep your vision statement alive by keeping it physically prominent. Read it aloud at every Chapter meeting; Print it on your programs; In your emails.....Wherever you, your members and future members will see it (and be reminded of it) daily.  

Make Your Vision Statement the Right One!

It isn't hard to write a vision statement. But it is sometimes difficult to write a vision statement that truly encapsulates the vision of the Chapter. When you write a vision statement, make sure that you have chosen the vision that is most important to the Chapter and to it's members. If all the members fully believe in the Chapter's vision statement, the members will be fully engaged, able to fully commit to it, get involved in it, and all will work towards the ultimate destination / Goal(s) of the Chapter.

I look forward to seeing and hearing your Chapter's Vision for the upcoming year. 

In appreciation,

Annette