social business entrepreneur visionMy dad loved to play the guitar. I can remember him writing his own music and singing along with Neil Diamond and Kenny Rogers. It seems like just yesterday we were riding in his blue Chevy truck with the pop top camper headed to the Colorado Rocky mountains to camp in the woods for a week at a time. If only we could go back to those days and appreciate them then as much as we would now!

My dad was also an entrepreneur. He had worked corporate for many years but like me got tired of the rat race and set out on his own to build a successful telecommunications service company. The older I get the more I understand the reasons he liked some of the songs he did. It wasn't only because they talked about playing poker or me “being his sunshine, his only sunshine.” It was because they hit the heart of both life and business in many ways.

To say we have went thru exciting changes since I made decision 2.5 years ago to be an entrepreneur would be an under statement. In the past year my husband left his corporate career of 15+ years and became my partner in business.  We  recently sold our first agency and just this week launched our new full service social brand & digital marketing agency, Marketing Nutz!

Although the past few weeks have been beyond crazy, it has also been a great time to reflect on where we have been and where we are going and how we can make this next chapter even better!

It's easy to see the key components (cards we played) that enabled our success and also give us the foundation to move forward to this next chapter with such confidence.

Our hand of entrepreneur cards:

1. Vision
2. Flexibility
3. Agility
4. Innovation
5. Faith
6. Community

If you took any one of the 6 components above away, we wouldn't be where we are. They are inter-related and dependent upon one another.

As we worked on our new agency brand story, social brand and digital execution, new services offerings based upon 2.5 years in the trenches of social business, we realized how despite all the learnings, changes and evolution in technology our vision and community were the two primary constants…

  • Our vision is still the same as day one.
  • People really do buy from people.
  • It doesn't matter if you have a website launched or not, amazing leads will still come in and contracts will be signed if you have established a personal brand, credibility and an online conversion funnel not dependent upon a silo'd website.
  • Regardless what the name of our company is or where it is based, our community showed us they know, love and will be there for us.
  • Our community came to bat for us when we needed them. They kept our blog readership up, leads coming in, prayed for us and held our back when we were tired and busy building chapter two.

entrepreneur social business visionIf you are just starting a business, venturing into a new market, expanding your business, narrowing your focus or finally have decided to make the investment to integrate social media into the DNA of your business, I have one word of advice for you… VISION! You MUST know your vision. Who are you? What are you? Where are you going? Why are you going there? Why should your clients, partners, prospects, friends, colleagues follow you there? What will you do when you get there?

If you don't have vision you will: 

  • Never know when to be flexible.
  • Never feel comfortable being agile.
  • Never know when to hold em'.
  • Never know when to fold em'.
  • Never know when to walk away.
  • Never know when to run.
  • Never have 100% confidence in a decision to strike a deal, end a partnership or make a large investment.
  • Be reluctant to invest in innovation and will wind up stuck in your ways or in the same box over and over.
  • Lose faith as you don't know what you believed in or where you were going to begin with.
  • Find it difficult building community as without vision people won't know where you are going and why they should tag, help or come along!

I'll be writing more posts on this subject with a goal of helping you learn from our successes as well as mistakes. For now I'm going to leave you with our new video which describes our beliefs regarding social media. We believe the heartbeat of social media is people and that includes you.  Watch the video here –> We Believe – HeartBeat of Social Media

Some great words from our buddy, Kenny Rogers.

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done

Now every gambler knows the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away
And knowin' what to keep
‘Cause every hand's a winner
And every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep”

 Thanks to those who helped build us! 

Thank you to every one of you who have shared our blog posts, traded tweets, sent DMs or personal Facebook messages of inspiration, debated topics that helped us learn, shared your awesome content, liked our pages, Google+'d our posts, and most importantly gave me a “woot” when I asked for it. You need to know you are the sunshine in my days. You are appreciated and I am blessed to have you in my tweet stream, community and life!

What are your cards? 

What is the hand of cards you are holding? Do you have a vision card? Or do you need to get yourself a white board and set of markers and get to writin' & drawin'? If you don't know where you are going, why you are going then how are you going to know when ya' get there?

Here is a video we just completed which highlights our beliefs and foundation for business and life.  I truly hope you enjoy it and that it will inspire you to get out the marker if your vision could use some work!