If you're old enough to remember, back in the late '90's every public corporation had to have Mission and Vision Statements. It was all the rage and most of them were crap. They were either outsourced to some 3rd-party PR firm or developed by an in-house committee and they sounded like it ("a camel is a horse designed by a committee"). Left a bad taste in the minds of a lot of marketing-minded people.

So why am I going to recommend that you have them?

Your Marketing Advantage

Because you are a small business. Your practice is largely about you and with rare exception corporate America can't make their business all about one personality. You can and you should. Your statements are an extension of your Story, not some corporate feel-good statement designed to appease shareholders and the other 11 people on the committee. That is your advantage, your opportunity.

Your Story is Your Why

Simon Sinek says that "people won't buy from you until they know why you do what you do". Not what you do, or how you do it, but why you do it. It's a very personal, insightful and direct presentation about what drives you to be a counselor.

It's much deeper than what you're "passionate" about, helping other people, or ending world hunger. Those are default attributes. Let's peel back the layers and get to your personal experiences that drove you down the path to become a counselor. That is how you end up with a solid Story that makes people resonate with you like a tuning fork.

Your Story is a Matroyshka Doll

Located inside your properly written Story that makes the reader sit up and say, "that's the one I wanna see!", are your Mission and Vision Statements.

Let me say that again. If you write your Story properly, your Mission and Vision Statements are contained within it! You will have already written them. Here's why.

Statements Defined

Your Mission Statement answers the question, "what do I hope to accomplish with my clients today?" It's your short-term answer to "why do you do what you do?".

Your Vision Statement takes a long-term approach and answers the question when one of your grand-kids asks you, "Grandma/Grandpa, why were you a counselor?" Look forward and as best you can try and formulate that answer.

Here's where most folks go wrong in putting these things together....they almost immediately make their Story and consequently these two statements, about their clients. They're off-track before they get started. Your "why" is about you and what you hope to get out of it all by helping other people, and that's fair. No one does what they do expecting to get nothing out of it in the way of personal fulfilment. No one. So let me hear your why and what's driving you.

The Challenge to Connect

So properly write your Story. If you do, your Mission and Vision Statements will be buried within like little gems just waiting to be found.

Find them, do a bit of polishing (editing to make them stand alone) and, voila, you have Mission and Vision Statements that will make Corporate America green with envy.

You should place both statements prominently on your Home Page with links to your Story. We want every visitor to your site to see them right up front and begin the connection with you immediately. Make sense? And if you have a group each counselor should have their own Story and Mission/Vision Statements on their individual pages. Problem solved.

We got this.

(If you need help, call us. There's a small fee but it's ridiculously low.)