The ONE Decision You Have to Make to Start Your Business

Have you made the one decision you need before starting your business?

Hint—it’s not a name, or a logo, or an investment, or even a product.

You’ve probably had a lot of great ideas for a business and some of them you feel great about!

Then, when you Googled “how to start a business,” every piece of advice or good business idea made you question the original idea you had.  Right?

That’s okay—it’s a pretty common thing.

If you find yourself getting pulled away from your initial idea or getting confused about your primary business focus because it feels like there are so many good things you can do, you haven’t made your one decision yet.

What’s the One Decision?  Your purpose.

When I started my marketing agency, I knew what I wanted to do.  I was going to brand and market downtown historic districts.  I’d never built that size of business before, so as I started to look at how to grow, my thinking got cloudy.

Then I got scared because I wasn’t getting any clients.

Then I started taking whatever I could to pay the bills, whether it fit with my company’s purpose or not.

I did a little freelancing, wrote some articles, designed some brochures for a hotel, and wrote a government grant application.  None of which fit into what I really wanted to do.

It wasn’t until I completely stumbled into getting my ideal client that I got really clear on my purpose.

Purpose is one of those words, like “mission,” “vision,” and “values,” that can mean a lot of different things.  Here are the differences:

Your vision is where you see your business being two years, five years, or 10 years down the road. Obviously, that’s important.  What are you headed toward? You have to have a vision. For example, your vision could be “to be the #1 candle seller on Etsy.”  What are you going toward?

Then there’s your mission. Mission talks about what you do right now.  It’s how you’re going to accomplish your vision.  In the above example, your mission would be “to make the highest quality, vegan, soy candles with exotic fragrances, and to do it with love and care.”

A lot of businesses also have a values statement.  These are the things you build your business culture around.  They can be based on your personal values, but also can expand to include your products.  “We value sustainability, freshness, and scents that bring peace and harmony to the world.”

So what, then, in your purpose?  If vision, mission, and values are already explained, why do you need a purpose?

And why on earth is this the ONE decision you have to make?

Your purpose is why you exist.  You look at your business from your clients’ perspective, not yours.  What problem do you solve?  How do you make your customers’ lives better?

When you figure that out, you will never be confused about what your core business is.  You won’t question your judgement about the type of business you want to start.

Once you have your purpose front-and-center, you’ll have so much clarity about how to get started that things will fall into place as if by magic.  You’ll know exactly what to say “yes” to, and more importantly, what to say “no” to.

I want to help you make this one decision and get your business started without all the doubt and confusion.  If you want to start a business where your purpose is numero UNO, reach out to me and let me help you make the big decision so you can get your business started right away.

About the author

Dr. Judy Morley has been described as a “human potential specialist.” Her years of experience in different arenas varies from being an advertising executive to a college professor to an executive to an entrepreneur and franchise owner.  Each of these positions has given her great insight into helping people find their authentic style of leadership.