Daily Marketing Ace

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Originally uploaded by Stewart Leiwakabessy

It’s been about six days since I posted part 2 in this series of posts about developing a traffic strategy.

You can find the ‘table of contents’ for this and future case studies here.

In the last post, we discussed the meta-structure that I use to bring context to the idea of developing an effective strategy. As I suspected, the act of sharing my approach is, in itself, a helpful process. I has helped me refine my approach and to ‘drink my own koolaid’ as it were.

The comments I receive are helpful too. My friend Case Stevens helped me understand how the semantics of my “Y axis” label was a bit misleading. Thanks Case.

Now, on to today’s post. I’ve spent the last six days clarifying and documenting the vision for Daily Marketing Ace. At the same time, I attempted to develop a process that anyone could follow to nail down their vision.

I suppose I should have guessed as much, but the process is far from simple, so forgive me the loooooong blog post. If you make it all the way through in one sitting, you get a gold star.

Let me share the steps in the process first, and then I’ll show how I used the process to develop a specific vision for Daily Marketing Ace. Perhaps you will find it helpful when you sit down to do the heavy lifting of clarifying and documenting your own vision. And I do mean “heavy lifting” this is, in no way, easy work, but the impact it can have on your business is profound.

Before I jump into the process, let’s take a moment to define exactly what a vision statement is. As I am prone to do, this is my own definition — there may be better ones in scholarly works, but this one may help you nonetheless. That’s either me being a free thinking individualist or me simply being too lazy to do the proper research. Probably a bit of both.

Here’s my definition of “vision statement” within the context of business strategy:

A vision statement paints a clear picture of what an idea will look like when it reaches it’s full potential.

Another word for “full potential” in my vernacular is “manifestation.” (I put that in so you won’t think I’m being too “woo woo” when you see the word manifestation pop up - the word does have some very practical applications

One Marketer’s Process for Clarifying and Documenting a Vision Statement

Step 1: Intention and Incubation

Developing a vision is not something one can just jump in to, I believe that it is important to first get into the right frame of mind. For me, the best way to do that is to let my subconscious work on the issue for a while by first setting a clear intention in a very committed way. This acts as a signal to your brain and calls attention to the issue at hand.

If you set a clear intention for what you want to accomplish and then give it a little time, your brain will start to work on a solution in the background. This happens while you are sleeping, or engaged in ‘mindless’ tasks such as driving or taking a shower.

If you are clear about your intention, and trust that your sub-conscious will work on it while your conscious mind is otherwise engaged, you will find that a lot of the pieces start to come together almost magically. Like anything the more you do it, the better you get, but trust that this is the way your mind was designed and it will work for you.

Step one is this: set a clear intention, do it in the most committed and clear way possible, allow some time for your sub-conscious to work on the task, and trust the process.

Step 2: Download Your Thoughts

If you have done step one thoroughly, most of the information you need to clarify and document your vision will already exist in your mind. It just has to be downloaded and organized.

At this point, the thoughts are kind of rattling around in your head. They exist, but without any kind of organizational structure. The resulting feeling can best be described as “confusion” and sometimes “overwhelm.”

Again, trust is a major factor at this point. Trust that the thoughts and ideas you need are in your mind. It’s normal for them to be jumbled and confused.

For me, the best way to download my thoughts is to simply get a blank sheet of paper and just start writing. I purposely use un-lined paper and I start somewhere near the middle. Specifically, I use a spiral-bound artists sketch book with heavy paper and a heavy ‘clipboard’ back. This way, all of my notes and thoughts are bound together and I can’t loose them.

The unlined blank pages give me the freedom to just put thoughts on paper without being encumbered with trying to organize them. I can also use sketches, doodles, tape in clippings, etc.

Oh, that’s an important point that I almost forgot to mention. At this stage you are just trying to get thoughts on paper, don’t make the mistake of trying to organize them into any meaningful structure at this point.

Personally, I prefer pen and paper for this type of exercise. It helps to get away from the computer and just let things flow. I have yet to find a computer application that gives me that kind of freedom.

After reading Robert M. Pirsig’s Lila I was determined to use 3×5 note cards for this kind of thought download exercise. They work really well, possibly even better than my blank notebook, but they tend to get filed away in some drawer and become useless to me after the exercise is done. So I have since abandoned that method.

After you feel that you have downloaded all of your thoughts about the vision you hope to achieve, then read through everything you have recorded. At this point, I usually begin to see connections (which I literally connect using circles and lines) and some organization begins to materialize.

(Note: sometimes the resulting download looks like a mind map, sometimes it just looks like a bunch of notes.)

Step 3: Draft a Brief Vision Statement

Now it is time to extract the essence of the thoughts you have about your vision into a single, overarching, vision statement. Your vision statement should not be more than a few sentances and, most importantly, it needs to communicate your idea clearly, in a way that others will immediately grasp and understand.

In most cases, it takes me four or five attempts and re-writes to get to a vision statement that I’m happy with. Even then, expect the vision to be a bit fluid and for it to evolve over time.

Your vision needs to be clear, but not rigid.

Step 4: Develop a 360 degree View of Your Vision

One of the most important steps you can take is to consider the vision you have created from multiple different angles. Every vision has multiple stakeholders — people who stand to benefit from the idea and their viewpoint needs to be represented.

To get a 360 degree view of your vision, you first need to make a list of the key stakeholders. Then ask yourself how each stakeholder will benefit from the manifestation of the vision. In other words, when your vision becomes reality, who will it benefit and how?

For each stakeholder, list three to four dot points explaining how the vision will benefit them. Then refine the dot points into a one or two sentence benefit statement for each stakeholder.

Step 5: Put it All Together

Now, hopefully, you are feeling really clear about your vision and all that is left is to tie it up into a neat package.

Write your vision statement, and below it write each of the stakeholder benefit statements.

Voila. You are done!

Want to see how the process unfolded for my effort to divine a vision statement for Daily Marketing Ace?

Step 1: Intention and Incubation

By starting this blog series I had the perfect vehicle for setting my intention. Did I do it in a committed way? What could be more committed than making a very public declaration of my intent to clarify my vision and to write about it? So, just starting this series helped with the intention and incubation process.

I also asked a conscious question of myself along the lines of “How can I clearly communicate the vision I have for Daily Marketing Ace?” And “what will this project look like when it has reached it’s full potential?”

Then, by necessity, I let the idea sit. I would think about it occasionally, but for the most part, I was occupied with other urgent tasks while my sub-conscious worked on the answer to my question.

Step 2: Download Your Thoughts

If I wasn’t on the road in a Holiday Inn at the time of this writing, I may have scanned my notes to show you just how jumbled my ‘thought download’ looked after I was done. But fortunately for you, I’ll not subject you to the ghastly mess I created.

Step 3: Draft a Brief Vision Statement

Here’s what I ended up with:

Daily Marketing Ace is the number one source of information, resources, and training for Infopreneurs seeking to market their products on the Internet more effectively.

A couple of points on the above:

1) If your vision statement doesn’t make you a bit apprehensive and nervous, it’s not big and bold enough.

2) Write in the present tense, as if the vision is already manifested into reality.

3) The statement should be about your audience (key stakeholder) and not about you or your company.

4) Anyone should be able to read it and mostly “get” what you are seeking to accomplish.

5) Your statement should, minimally, say what “it” is, what “it” does and who “it” is for.

5) I think I can still do better, but I’ll let it evolve fluidly over time.

6) I could have done better, but the sun was in my eyes, the crowd was distracting, my shoelace was untied, and I had a cramp. Considering this list of good excuses, I think I did an OK job.

Step 4: Develop a 360 Degree View of Your Vision

Here’s my list of key stakeholders…

Content Consumers: I couldn’t come up with a better, more concise term for Subscribers, Visitors, and Members (yes, there is a membership in the future.)

Content Contributors: This is the constantly-growing group of brilliant Internet marketers who are willing to share their expertise.

Fire Mountain Marketing: This is the corporate name of my company. The company consists of me, present and future investors, and present and future team members.

Product Owners: DMA promotes products that can help attain the vision, the owners of those products are, indeed, key stakeholders. In order for the vision to be attained, they must benefit.

Affiliates/JV Partners: Every business needs a sales force of some sort. Affiliates and JV partners are the sales channel of choice for DMA. They are, therefore one of the key stakeholders.

And the benefit statements I created for each one:

Content Consumers get pre-screened, filtered, relevant content as well as a community of like-minded individuals to interact with.

Content Contributors get easy access to a targeted audience as well as expert status and enhanced credibility.

Fire Mountain Marketing gets immediate revenue from sales of select products and, more importantly, a ready-made micro-market to help develop and launch new products.

Product owners get to reach a targeted audience and to tap in to a large affiliate sales force.

Affiliates get to promote great free content and earn an ongoing passive income stream through tested and optimized offers.

Step 5: Put it All Together

Daily Marketing Ace is the number one source of information, resources, and training for Infopreneurs seeking to market their products on the Internet more effectively.

The key stakeholders for this project are: content consumers, content contributors, Fire Mountain Marketing, product owners, and affiliates/JV partners.

The realization of this vision provides the following benefits to key stakeholders.

Content Consumers get pre-screened, filtered, relevant content as well as a community of like-minded individuals to interact with.

Content Contributors get easy access to a targeted audience as well as expert status and enhanced credibility.

Fire Mountain Marketing gets immediate revenue from sales of select products and, more importantly, a ready-made micro-market to help develop and launch new products.

Product owners get to reach a targeted audience and to tap in to a large affiliate sales force.

Affiliates get to promote great free content and earn and ongoing passive income stream through tested and optimized offers.

Commentary

Ah, I feel better. It is truly a relief to have my vision for this project clearly documented. Plus, for those who are interested, it is fun to provide a glimpse of the future.

I have to admit, there are times, when writing these posts where I feel naked and exposed like a lizard on a cold rock. But the benefits, at least for me, far outweigh the discomfort.

The project, as it stands now, has elements of the vision that are starting to materialize. I also see that there is a LOT of work left to do.

So, it is with a combination of excitement and shortness of breath that I close this post and get back to work. I hope this has helped you, if even in a small way, to begin the work of developing or refining your own vision.

As always, comments are welcome.