BIZ: CHAPTER 2
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LESSON 1: Brainstorming Your Purpose and Values
It is important to think about the purpose, mission and values of your business. This is helpful in focusing your energy, gathering your thoughts, developing a clear plan and envisioning all of the possibilities for your new venture.
Let’s start with a BIG CLOUD brainstorm. Put on your most inspiring music as you complete this white board exercise. Write down all of the words/thoughts that come to you when you think about what your business represents, its purpose, what it does daily as well as what it creates and achieves in the long run. Choose sexy, descriptive words and phrases that evoke an emotional connection or understanding.
An excellent brainstorm list could include:
Empowering beginning level clients
Laughing + Sweating = Success!
Corrective workouts leading to PAIN FREE daily living
Performance fitness for corporate America’s over-achievers
Commitment, Performance, Results
Embracing whole, naturally raised foods
As opposed to:
Helping people lose weight
I highly recommend using Thesaurus.com in order to come up with juicy, vibrant text. You want these thoughts/phrases to illicit emotional reactions from your clients and would-be customers.
Enjoy the process of this exercise!
EXERCISE
Building your Purpose and Values Brainstorm List
Brainstorm a full list of 'Value Words' and 'Purpose Phrases' that come to mind when you think about what your business represents, it's purpose, what it does daily as well as what it creates and achieves in the long run. Choose sexy, descriptive words and phrases that evoke an emotional connection for your clients and possible customers. Enter this entire list in your Fitness Entrepreneur 101 workbook.
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LESSON 2: Determine Your Top Four
Your giant brainstorm list is done. Now comes the difficult part of the exercise, determining the TOP FOUR words/thoughts that best represent the heart, soul, & purpose of your business. Sort through your full list of purpose and value statements until you can narrow down the list to the four most appropriate items.
Once you have your four favorites, write a short sentence or two which combines these thoughts into a description of how these values will come together in the daily purpose of your business.
For Example. at DIAKADI our initial top four phrases are:
Empower All Levels of Clients
Welcoming and Comfortable for Everyone
Advanced Education
Incredible Service
A possible sentence could be:
“DIAKADI will empower the athlete in every level of client through the advanced education of our trainers and coaches and the bar-setting customer service from our team and within our welcoming and inspiring facility.”
Once you complete your sentence(s), this is the first draft of your Mission statement. Your Mission statement is meant to describe the ‘why’ for your business both to clients as well as members of your team. This will be your statement to return to in making future business decisions, as well as an excellent aid in helping you say NO when things come along that aren’t a good fit (i.e. deciding NOT to partner with products or partners that don’t fit your brand).
As we progress through the following chapters, you may feel the need to tweak this original statement, which is totally fine. So much about your business will be a growing, living thing throughout this development process and beyond.
EXERCISE
Creating Your Mission from Your Values and Purpose
Based on the full brainstorm list of Purposes + Values you created above, group similar ideas together and select the Top Four Values that best represent your business. List these four values in your Fitness Entrepreneur 101 Workbook.
Once you have your four favorite Purpose + Value statements, write a short sentence or two which combines these thoughts into a description of how these values will come together in the daily purpose of your business. This will be your first Mission statement. Write this Mission in your Fitness Entrepreneur 101 Workbook.
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Mission Complete!
YOU DID IT! Congratulations.
As I mentioned, you will return back to this Mission many times throughout this development process. Sometimes it will be to tweak the statement, and at other times, this Mission will serve as the perfect reminder of exactly why you started on this journey.
Print/post it somewhere that you will see it daily/weekly. (At DIAKADI, we even printed a 14 foot stencil of ours on a wall inside the facility in order to keep us focused.) If you ever get to a point where you feel like you have lost your way, return to your Mission for clarity and direction.
