By Bert Zethof

One of the mantras of business and strategic planning is to develop a vision. What are you trying to build? What is the customer value that you hope to provide? What is the unique selling proposition of your business?

This is easier said than done.

Rare is the case where the "true" vision is born whole right off the mark. More usual, is the evolving vision. You try something, see what works, make adjustments. You learn more about your personal and team's strengths and talents and build on them. Sometimes serendipity drops an opportunity in your lap that you would never have foreseen and it boosts your company to the next level. I like to think of this process as emergent vision - it becomes clearer over time.

So can this process be accelerated? Yes, I believe it can. Here are some things you can do to zero in on your vision faster:

- keep a journal of your entrepreneurial journey and look for patterns in your writings
- I've always liked the phrase: "ready, fire, aim", i.e. try lots of experiments
- cut your losses by knowing when to end an experiment
- be fluid and quick to allocate budget resources to promising parts of your business
- create a vision board and update it frequently as your thoughts evolve
- talk to your customers and learn from them what does and does not work
- do both people and organizational assessments, eg. SWOT analysis, Myers-Briggs, Kolbe Index, etc. to discover your strengths
- have a mentor or coach to bounce ideas around; a different perspective can lead to the insight for a breakthrough
- be curious and stay open-minded

Do these things and you will experience more growth and increased certainty about your direction sooner.