Planning for The New Year – Your Vision and Mission

Once you’ve gotten honest about where you are, what you’re lacking, what hasn’t materialized in your practice and you’ve considered that maybe you can’t do it all on your own, it’s time to make a new plan and take it one step at a time.  As Mark Victor Hansen reminded me this week, “You don’t have to get it perfect – you just have to get it going.”

Any plan for the future starts with a vision.  The vision is a passionate statement of the future of your practice – an expansive description of what you want your practice to be in three to five years, including revenue, profits, practice areas, firm culture, number of employees, types of clients, geographical area, and number of clients.

The mission statement describes the current status of your firm, and how the firm functions on a day to day basis – what is important to the firm.  It focuses mainly on three things: Purpose, Business, and Values.  It describes the manner in which the firm intends to achieve its vision.

The firm’s purpose describes the reason the firm exists.  What needs does the firm seek to fill?  What problems does the firm’s work address?

The business includes both practice areas and the types of clients serviced by the firm – i.e. small business owners involved in contract litigation with vendors, or individuals seeking to obtain government benefits, etc.

The mission statement also addresses the firm’s values and core priorities. What’s most important to the firm?

The vision and mission statements should inspire the entire firm, and should be understandable to the entire firm.  The mission statement should clearly communicate to the firm’s employees, colleagues and clients the essential nature of the firm’s business, its direction, its core purpose and how the firm wants to be known.  It illustrates the firm’s unique competitive advantages.

Once the vision and mission statements are written down (see my next post on why writing is important), goal-setting can begin!