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In any organization, mission and vision are critical.  The mission statement details the organization’s purpose; what they will be offering to their customers, what social roles they will play, things of that nature.  The vision statement, however, details where you want to be in 5-10 years.  It is a description of a desired outcome that helps and inspires you to create a mental picture of your target. 

In a previous post, I detailed how to go about writing a mission statement.  Although a vision statement adopts some of the same principles, there are distinguishing characteristics.  Each have their own purpose and it is important not to get the two confused!

Vision Statement Guidelines:

• Summarize you vision in one powerful phrase
• It may be as long as you need to develop the ‘image’
• It should describe the best possible outcome
• The statement should be written in present tense
• It should be written to be persuasive – emotional
• Add sensory details

Basically, your vision statement is your main set of goals, put into paragraph form.  It is where you want your company to go in the future.  In some cases, the vision statement may even act as a rough guide in getting there, since it is supposed to be written in an engaging fashion. 

Altogether, the mission and vision statement combined give a quick and dirty briefing of what your company is about and how you are going to get there.  The other nice thing as a business owner, once these two documents are out of the way, you really feel like your company has a purpose.  Rather than trying to explain random, half thought, ideas to someone, you have this professional document that details exactly what you will do to make your company successful.  It really does make a difference!

tags: business building, startups, innovation, entrepreneurs, technology, business

– Update: My domaining book/eBook has been released. Check out “The Art of Domaining: A Comprehensive Guide for Domainers” today! –

Business Models on the Internet change slightly from what we see in the more traiditonal business world, but thought and preparation still needs to be placed on developing them fully. You still need a business plan, somehow to market it, a way to please the customers once you get them there, and so on. Without those things, the site lacks validity and will not become nearly the success that you are hoping for.

After all, remember that you have about 3 seconds before the customer clicks the little X in the top right corner. It is up to you to make the most of the 3 seconds. An additional note, there has been research conducted about what it is that a person looks for when they open a site. They skim the top, move down about 1 inch and skip the top again, and then they look down the left sidebar. If it is the least bit confusing to them, they will leave.

With that said, there is a general matrix which you can put your idea through to figure out where your money will be coming from. The following is a list of guidelines which should help you pick your business model and may even define some other areas of interest. Some are common knowledge, but I wanted to assemble this list so that you can see your choices in one section.

Website Business Model Matrix:

1. Sell goods and services
2. Sell information or digital content, possibly with a subscription
3. Advertising and PPC supported model
4. Fee for transaction model – think ebooks
5. Peer to Peer – a regulated user exchange system
6. Auction – general, specialty, business to business
7. Web portals or virtual communities
8. Technology based products – ie. data mining, software as a service
9. Multiple sites – one website per demographic
10. X Factor – a new service or technology that changes the game, ie. Youtube, Facebook

Now, to throw a bit of domaining knowledge in there, try to use an EXISTING domain name. They will rank better. Establish trust with your site and do not use frames in its coding. Have a good look and feel with pleasant graphics. Choose your colors wisely, they say a lot about your company. And have extremely good customer service. Return emails quickly and promptly. You may be a one man operation, but being online the right way can make you look like an army.

tags: websites, business, models, technology, peer to peer, internet, web, ppc, entrepreneurs