Vision and Goals
The Importance of This Building Block: Before you think about moving ahead with your marketing in Africa, it is important to determine whether your vision and goals for your business are in order. Some people ask, “Is this vision realistic? Can I do it? Am I worthy of something like this?”
Others are even more perceptive and think, “Is this vision worthy of me?”
Think about it!
Every business needs to develop a clear vision of where they are trying to get to so that they can reverse-engineer strategies and tactics to get them there. This becomes the plan (See Building Block 2).
In the famous fairy tale of Alice in Wonderland, Alice said to the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
Goals must be definable, concrete, specific and observable.
In life, I have observed older and younger people and they each experience a level of pain. The younger people experience the pain of discipline. “You must study. You must run longer. You must learn this material.” It is painful, but the results can produce great rewards if the training is appropriate.
Older people, on the other hand, experience the pain of regret. “If I only could have done that. I wish I could have gone there. I wish I had a little more money to do this.” Setting goals while you are young, then working out a realistic plan to achieve those goals will energize you through the pain of discipline and help you to avoid some of the regrets that you might face later in life. In my opinion, the pain of preparation is preferable to the pain of irreparable regret.
Start to ask yourself some serious questions and write down the answers on small cards that you can carry in your pocket or bag. “What is my purpose in living? What is most important to me in life? What do I really want to do with my life? What am I prepared to sacrifice to achieve my dreams?
Finally, what are the rewards of this course of action that I plan to take?” Writing these goals out clearly will energize you from day to day and lift your spirits when discouragement starts to raise its ugly head.
Biggest Mistake: Many businesses make a basic mistake when they attempt any sort of marketing in Africa. When they are trying to attract new customers, they don’t state their distinctive advantage and so they indirectly say, “Give me your business instead of my competitors, for no reason at all.” Or, “Give me your charity because I have nothing special to offer you.” It’s ridiculous! Why would businesses do that? If you cannot give them a better reason, they are probably not going to transfer their business over to you.