All big companies start with their big-picture business vision. They create their mission and vision statements followed by their business plans to set out how they are going to achieve their long-term goals. But for some reason, this is a part that many of us miss out on as freelancers. We launch ourselves into our work and forget to look at the big picture.

Most of us know why we started freelancing. More often than not, we made the decision to leave our corporate jobs to benefit from greater freedom and to work more flexibly, perhaps even to work fewer hours. But it’s easy to lose sight of that greater purpose when deadlines are looming at times and we’re struggling to make ends meet at others. In fact, not only do we sometimes lose sight of our ‘why’, but we often end up doing the exact opposite of what we intended when we became freelancers. Instead of working less and with more freedom, we find ourselves tied to our desks working all hours of the day (and occasionally the night!).

I personally find it useful to have a long-term vision for my life as it helps me to decide where I want to take my business. That’s why, in this blog post, I’m looking at how having a long-term vision can benefit you and support your freelance business.

How a long-term vision can encourage small business growth

My long-term vision helps guide everything within my business, from my pricing to the services I offer and the way I communicate with clients. After all, if you know what you’re working towards and you have a tangible goal in mind, it makes it far easier for you to achieve it!

If you know what you want your life to look like further down the line, you’ll be more likely to create a business that is compatible with your vision. For example, let’s imagine that within five years’ time you’d like to be working only three days a week. To turn this vision into a reality, you’ll make sure your business is targeting well-paying clients who don’t make too many demands on your time and don’t come to you with ‘urgent’ requests.

On the other hand, perhaps you want to be earning a certain amount in the future to be able to afford certain luxuries in life. If that’s the case, you might focus on offering exclusive services where quality, added value and extremely responsive customer care allow you to set higher prices that go way beyond what you need to be earning in order to live comfortably.

As you can see from these examples, your long-term vision will determine the path your business takes, giving it direction and focus. If you don’t have a clear long-term vision in mind, how can you know you’re working towards something you really want?

How a business vision can make you happier in your freelance work

A long-term vision for your life leads to a long-term vision for your business, which in turn can help you enjoy your work even more. Many of my mentees have told me that having a vision has made them far more motivated in their day-to-day activities.

When you think about it, it’s only natural. If you know why you’re doing something, you’re going to feel more inspired to do it and to take those small steps that will eventually enable you to reach your long-term goals.

In addition, not only will you feel more motivated, you’ll also face fewer doubts when it comes to making important business decisions. When you know that the amount a potential client is willing to pay for your services won’t support your long-term vision, it makes it easier to say no and walk away. Similarly, if you can see that a certain service you’re offering isn’t contributing to the achievement of your long-term goals, you’ll be more minded to make a change rather than continuing to invest time and effort in an area that isn’t really serving your purpose.

The same is true for your pricing in general. When you know how much you need to be earning to turn your vision into a reality, you’ll be far less likely to question your rates or feel tempted to lower them for a specific client.

Your long-term business vision in Charge with Confidence

As part of my Charge with Confidence programme, we do an exercise where we visualise the best possible version of ourselves 10 years from now. This helps us to understand what sort of work we want to be doing, how much we want to be earning, and what we want our work schedule to look like. We then work backwards from this vision to set aspirational rates we’ll work towards charging.

Charge with Confidence participants use their vision and aspirational rates to create long-term business goals that they can also break down into short-term, bite-sized goals. I’ve had some really positive feedback from Charge with Confidence graduates who have said that this visualisation exercise has had a real impact on their pricing and businesses in general:

“The most impactful aspect of the programme for me was my long-term vision as I had never really considered it before, and I found it really encouraging - I felt like it gave me something to aim towards and sort of renewed my motivation.” - Matthew Dykes

“The long-term vision exercise really had a significant impact on me and has motivated me to make tangible changes in my business. The programme has taken the emotion out of quoting for me. I can let go of a project knowing it won't serve me or the vision I have for my business if the client can't pay what I know I need to earn.” - Emily Safrin

“For me, creating a long-term vision for my business had a huge impact. Perhaps because I'm quite spontaneous, I had never really looked further ahead than the next 12 months. Actually realising what I currently want 10 years from now was eye-opening, and knowing what I'm working towards has contributed to giving my business direction and focus. Having found the ‘why’ that I was missing, I feel much more inspired to develop long-term goals.” - Beth Gardner

Some freelancers have told me that they feel uncertain about creating a long-term vision for themselves because they aren’t sure where they want to be in 10 years’ time and what might happen between now and then. I completely understand this, and it might well be that your long-term vision changes over the course of the years.

But don’t forget that it’s OK if your vision changes. Just because you create a long-term vision for yourself now doesn’t mean that it has to stay the same. In fact, it’s not unusual for people’s visions to change, and it’s not a problem either. If this happens, you can create a new plan with new long-term goals to work towards. You’re allowed to adjust your business and make changes. At the end of the day, that’s the beauty of being a freelancer, and it’s probably one of the reasons you became one in the first place!

If you’re interested in developing a vision for your business, click on the button below to find out more about my Charge with Confidence programme. By taking part, you’ll create a long-term vision and understand how to set an aspirational rate that you can work towards in order to achieve your goals.

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