Lessons

Lesson Info

Make Your Ambition Your Vision

Now we need to take this sort of big picture ambition, this purpose piece of the equation, and we need to start thinking about what that means for your business. What that actually looks like. Because what we have right now is something that feels good, it feels kind of inspiring. But we need to start connecting it to real change, to real goals. And so that's how we're gonna turn your ambition into your vision. Okay, turning your ambition into your vision. So I want you to describe your ideal business five years from now. Describe your ideal business five years from now. Now I know that this can be tricky, because your business has already changed a lot. Whether you've been in business for a year, or two years, or five years, or ten years, your business has changed a lot. And so looking out, forecasting five years from now, can be really difficult. But what I don't want you to do is to try and forecast where you're gonna be five years from now. That's one of the problems with goal sett...

ing, is we try and figure out what's reasonable, or what direction we're already headed in, and try and turn that into something moderately good looking. (laughing) That's not what we want to do today. I want you to choose where you wanna end up five years from now. Doesn't matter if you don't know how to get there, doesn't matter if you have never done any of that stuff before, I want you to choose where you're going to be five years from now. Don't worry, I'm gonna lead you through this and some of the specific things that I want you to think about. I want you to choose. Because part of taking control, part of becoming the leader that takes your business out of the weeds and up to the mountain top, is making a choice about where you're going, and not simply trying to figure out where you might end up five years from now. So describe your ideal business five years from now. First off, I want you to think about what kind of products you're going to be offering. Are they the same kind of products that you're offering right now, or are they different? Do you need to make a transition in your products, do you want to make a transition in your products, you want to be doing something completely different? What kind of products or services, packages, programs, courses are you going to be offering five years from now? I want you to think about where you want to be working five years from now. Are you in the same city that you're in today? Are you in a different city? Are you in your home office, the home office you work in today? Or are you in a different home office? Or are you in a studio? Are you in an office space downtown? Are you in a co-working space that you absolutely love because of the community that's there. Where are working on a day-to-day basis five years from now? Next, I want you to think about who you're going to be connected to five years from now. Who you're gonna be connected to in terms of your customers. Who you're gonna be connected to in terms of influencers, community members. Other leaders in your industry, in your community, in your local area. Who are you connected to? Then I want you to think about who's on your team. Maybe you know names right now. Maybe somebody right off the top of your head. You're thinking, "If I could do anything five years from now, "it would be hire that person." That's awesome. I have known people who know those things, and they make it happen. Maybe you just know that you need to have this kind of person on your team. They need to have that kind of personality, or this kind of personality, or that skill set, that's fine too. But I want you to be as specific as possible with each of these categories. So who's on your team? Five years from now, what milestones have you crossed? What have you accomplished, what have you checked off the big list? We all have them, right? We all have these lists of the milestones that we hope and dream and pray we're going to be able to cross. So as part of your five year vision, I want you to make a list of those things that you want to accomplish in the next five years. And then finally, the really scary one. How much revenue do you want to be generating five years from now? Maybe if you want to even go further, and I highly recommend it, how much income are you taking home? So really starting to separate, or maybe you've already done this, but if you haven't, do it now. Starting to separate revenue from take home income. Realizing that not every dollar you bring into your business is yours to do with what you will. (laughing) I mean it is, but not the same way. So how much revenue are you generating, and how much is your take home pay? Anybody have a pretty clear idea of their five year vision? Yeah, BJ? So, in terms of products, I'd like online courses. I like 3 books. I'm gonna have one-on-one consulting as well with consultants or for my clients. I'd have active and passive income streams. I wanna be, let's see, where I'm gonna be working, something similar to Creative Live. Yeah. It's got an office, it's like a loft or a... It's inspiring to be here, isn't it? It's very inspiring. It's a great space. But definitely an office, most likely in the east Bay area, like Oakland area. Yeah. Oakland California. Who I'm connected to, other entrepreneurs like yourself, and people in the... So, I help psychotherapist and their business, so in the psychological community of other therapists and psychologists. Yeah, So you see yourself really becoming a leader? Yeah, leader. Like a influencer as well. Yes. In terms of team, I'd like a sales and marketing department of 3 employees. I'd like 3 other consultants working under me, I'd like an assistant, and I'd like to be for myself, I'd like to be the visionary, the person that's handling business development, doing the strategic partnerships, and doing speaking as well, Yes. About building the business itself. Awesome. And then what else? What milestones? I'd like to have four million in revenue, and I'd like one million in take home revenue. Yes. (audience laughing) Think big. Think big. How are you ever going to make four million dollars in revenue, if you don't say right now, "I'm working towards four million dollars in revenue?" Right? You can't create that plan until you have that goal. And so, BJ now has that plan. Right? You have that plan. Even though you don't know what it looks like, just because you've set that goal, you are on the path. And as we go throughout today, we'll talk about what some of the specifics of that plan are going to be. But setting that goal is incredibly important. Setting that vision in place is incredibly important. Do you have any questions? I'm gonna take a breather here for questions. We have one online question. This is exiting, we're trying something new. Oh, here we go. So this is from Sandakum, uh maybe? This person says, "If my business is at a crossroad "and will be taking a major transition, "which point should I be taking as my starting point? "The new start planned in August or from now, "which will be a transitional phase? "How could one effectively include "a transitional phase into the goal plan?" This is a great question. And this is what I deal with on a daily basis with my clients, is my clients are all in business transitions. They've hit that kind of plateau, or they've gotten to that point where they are bored to death with what they have, and they want to create something new. So, first of all, start creating your plans, your visions, your goals. Do all of the work that you're doing today for the business you want to have, not the business that you have right now. It's so much easier after you have that plan to come back to the business you have right now and say, "Okay, I need to get to this point, you know, "with this business to be actually able "to transition into that other business." Then, you want to start setting milestones. So what are those kind of, almost hurdles, that you need to jump over, to feel comfortable moving into the next phase of your business. For some people, there's a clean break between one phase of their business and the next. So those milestones might be things like, having a certain amount of money in your personal savings, right? Or a certain amount of money in your business savings, because maybe you're self funding this new phase of your business. For others, it's a more gentle transition. And so they make milestones like, "Well, I'm gonna work with this many employees, or, "I'm sorry, with this many clients, "and when I have this many clients paying at this rate, "then I can remove this other thing from my business, "and move on to this new thing that I want to do." Does that make sense? But it is really really important to set these definitive milestones. I want to have twenty-five thousand dollars in savings, I want to be working with 5 clients at 5 thousand dollars a month, or whatever it might be. You have to set those milestones, so that when you achieve it, it is crystal clear, and it triggers the next action, which is to eliminate something else or to move to start something new. So those milestones are super important. And then he says, "If I'm a one-man business, "could we still use 'we' in the ambition statement? "Will that be false projection?" This is a choose your own adventure. (giggles) You can use we, especially if you want to grow into a we. Or you could use I. And I use to only ever use I. Even when I was a we, I would still use I. Cause I have personal brand, people know my business as me. But, I have recently, well not recently, in the last few years, I've really felt a change in this. Because what I've seen is a lot of people using I, and limiting themselves because of that I. Because you alone can only accomplish what you alone can accomplish. And it may be amazing things, and maybe that's where you want to be, and that's fine. But I think something different happens when you start using we. The we becomes not about a group of people, but about the organization of your business. And that's separate from you. And that's really important, because the organization of your business, your brand, this thing that you're building that's separate from you, can do different things than you can do personally. Also, when you start to use we, you start including your community, and including your customers in the way you're building your business. And so even if you're a one-man business or a one-woman business, there's a we involved, right? Because your customers are part of your team. Your network is part of your team. So there is a we involved in that way as well.