How to Set Your Vision

0:00IT Mastermind Talks is sponsored by IMA itva and Loading Growth our podcast features tips and tricks to help scale your IT services business gain insights and advice for every stage of your business Journey from initial growth strategies to successful exits join us be part of our growing community and engage in the conversation hosted by Ian marm of loading growth good day this session today is really about setting up a vision for your business and as I mentioned in the previous video around creating a strategy one of the ma most important steps right up front is creating a vision and I'm going to go through a few of the reasons why it's important to have a vision articulated we normally do that Vision in the focus day and when we talk to our clients it's really really important to make sure that we get that really captured before you move into your business bus planning stage I often get you know asked you know why why is it important to have have a vision and one of the things I always say is you know to make sure that you actually know what success looks like you've got to actually articulate that when you articulate that it's h important because when you write it down you actually start to believe it and that's really really important so it's sort of like you know when you verbalize something you might think something through in your mind but when you talk to someone and through that

1:33Communication you actually start to believe it the moment you start to articulate it on a document you start to really solidify that vision and that is also another form of actually communication obviously and that locks that in your mind so the vision really is done by the leadership team or the business owners the founders whatever it is that runs the company making sure that vision is really aligned and making sure that people understand that it's that important and that we actually go back to the vision whenever there's a breakdown in communication or breakdown in not achieving those numbers where is the anchor coming from and the anchor is coming back from the back to the vision of what we want from this organization now the vision could be slightly different from a business owner to a leadership team so just going to make sure that you understand that they're both tie in together but they could be slightly different the business owner might not let the leadership team know that they want to put the business up for sale in 3 to 5 years and this is how they want that to happen or they might want to go to two days or 3 days a week but they might not want to let the leadership team know at the time and the point in time but that over a period of time that Vision will you know change and start to have those elements in there to make sure that the business strategy Act is able to be executed as what the business owner wants hell of important just making sure you know the vision is about having sustainable growth to make sure that you get those exceptional outcomes that you want and your your business no one wants to work in a business if it's not progressing forward and not moving in a way that

3:08Aligns with their personal values so you got to make sure you know in a consultancy environment that we're winning new projects we're doing new exciting things and we innovating and we bringing people along a journey and that's really important to have those components I believe to be part of your vision and as I always say you know if you don't have a plan the chances of of actually succeeding you know is is very low okay so like any plan the vision as I mentioned is really important when I had my own IT services firm it was a business intelligence company back in 2012 I sold sold it to a a big Global multinational called entity data big consultancy firm and obviously does everything else it's a top 30 global company you know we had a vision to be famous for businesses intelligence we had a vision to be famous to solve analytical challenges that companies were having at the time reporting consuming data making sure they can understand the data timely and that was really important we wanted to become famous for having the best team to deliver the most challenging you know problems that clients had as I'm a big believer of the bigger the problem you solve the more money you get paid and that's really what drove us around the vision of making sure we were the number one brand in Asia Pacific around analytics okay and that's why at the end

4:41Of the day when we put our business up for sale we had 14 companies that were actually beating down the door to buy us we were famous for something so that was really core to our vision and we never lost that through that process all the companies have been part of and there's been four other exits that have been part of that I've coached businesses through each one of them had a real core vision and those core Visions were you know around what were they famous for in that slice of that market and that was part of the vision okay making sure that really works so you know make sure you know what you fam is for and make sure that's part of the vision as well the next thing is around being realistic with your vision okay and really making sure that when people read that Vision they really can understand how the business that you're working in actually will achieve that Vision over the next two three years you might have a a vision or a Beck as a Founder that's really quite scary sometimes I would say you know leave that separate and and not to just dumb it down I hate that but make sure it's realistic to people that you're hiring making sure the people along the journey understand that is achievable hell of importantance to that I've got a concept it's called the 10x or the 2x a lot of people have been writing about this for the last 10 to 15 years it might be the be hag or you know from Vern Harish or 10x is easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan is another great Booker that touches on this on this but for me it's really important to understand the 10x versus the 2x because this is part of the core fundamentals of a vision

6:16When I talk to companies and we talk about vision and where they're going as a business the first thing they say is oh yeah we want to you know grow 20 to 30% and and I think that's that's where I would say is a sustainable way sometimes people say to me hey they want to double the business and that is possible if the business is fairly small but if you get your 30 staff 40 staff you can't double your business that quickly so then you should be going into 20 to 30% growth okay that's the that's the the way I look at things less you scalable and everything else I've mentioned this from previous videos as well ear on the 10x is the 10x minded is or the beag M it same same concept is making sure that you set a bar set something up there that's big enough to stop you to think every now and then when you look at your strategy because vision is part of your strategy to say hey hang on we want to make sure that we actually fundamentally solving these four or five major rocks to grow the business over the next three to five years to really fundamentally challenge Us in the organization that we lead to grow that's what the 10x does the 10x should stop you from doing the mundane things if you don't do the mundane things what tends to happen and we see this with you know with over 130 clients who've coached over the last eight years is if you're doing the 2x type mindset is you instead of working 60 hours you're working 65 you're putting more pressure in yourself just to tweak out that little bit more efficiency and that little bit more of gain and you tweak n d and you're only going to get 2x tend

7:49To happens guess what you end up burnout you end up falling over and you end up not being very happy within your own business so make sure you put those big rocks in your vision as well to make sure that you actually stop yourself every now and then and say you know this is the this is the North Star this is where we are aiming to go as a business this is our vision when you have a a fairly effective Vision okay you can obviously have that on your website have it as part of your interview process someone wants to come on board or interview process send them the vision beforehand all right send them the core values so they actually can understand where you're going organization if it's not on the website send it out to them in an email before the the meeting so they can really understand make sure that they they can they talk to you about the vision in your interview process it's that important they've got to buy into it I us to have a you know part of the vision on my actual board in my boardroom I will get people to come in for face to face for the third last interview and make sure that they understood the vision and play it back and how it resonates with them or it doesn't resonate with them and see if that needs to be adapted or if you could add you know if that person is a culture H as well so just make sure that you know it's a impactful tool to make sure that you have component of that in the the mechanism to hire new staff okay really important to make sure the vision's there the next thing is when I talk to clients that are pitching at

9:23Their clients I always say to them make sure at some point early on in the engagement you know you might have a small engagement to start off with to build trust with the client and it's easy to wedge yourself into that door okay and that's a real tactic there's multiple ways we teach and how to get a new client and then how to actually on board yourself with a new client and how to get that engagement crisp and and and be successful okay but once he kicking off that engagement this is the time to sit back and say hey we're going to actually talk to them about our vision of a business now take the core components of that vision and overlay it with their vision of what they're trying to do you'll see there'll be two or three things in your vision that works and overlays their vision of their problems you're trying to solve okay and this is why it's great to be famous for something or a niche you know because that really resonates with the customers when they go through and people want to know where you're going as a business people want to know that you have a sustainable business they don't want to partner with a consultancy firm that might be closed in a year two years time they want to be partnering with a consultancy firm that basically has Innovation that is growing their staff that is training their staff and upselling they want a long-term relationship with you okay so got to make sure that Vision comes through early on in your engagements and your life cycles with them really important another thing about the vision as well is you know it's something that's got to be a

10:54Differentiator between you your competitors as well as the biggest system integrators if that's who you're competing with and you got to make sure that you know when we actually talk to our customers well our clients customers I should say that they know that you know they're always the underdog they're always fighting the fight the big fight against the big in system integrators and the big five you got to make sure that that Vision shines through to your clients okay it's really important to make sure that everyone is on the same page around that division around the North Star I mentioned that earlier on I want to go Circle back to that h of important to make sure that the North Star is guiding principles in your business the guiding principle in your business so it helps define your strategy and helps you make decisions and actually helps you with your process of running your organization a lot better if you have a North star and you have some debate or conflict interning at leadership or in the company it's easier to look back and say hey what what's our purpose what's our vision where are we going and does that fit into it the biggest challenge I see with my clients is they don't keep that Vision in a software or a strategy then review it over and over again and every quar I speak to them they go oh we doing this now well that wasn't in your strategy for the Year let alone a

12:26Quarter ago and now you're doing it and they they go after that shiny object syndrome which we' always been talking about in our industry for such a long time and we're not focus on actually driving the the value back to the shareholders back to the owners of the business back to the people that put risk and put the hles on the line to make sure they grow that so we got to make sure that we keep that aligned at all time okay make sure that we have that North Star to actually keep us guiding and we can you know bring that Vision that North Star out as quick as possible and use it to help us through a dilemma or through a point in time that we need to progress I think it's probably enough on the vision however important to get it right it is the foundation you know the vision are the the foundation before you start your actual business planning phase around you know the numbers for year one two and three and what you're going to do around your service lines and how you're going to execute and how you're going to hire and how you're going to go to market and all those other exciting things so please make sure you get that Vision sorted out and it's always moving it's always changing yes but you've got to put an anchor in the ground and you got to start the process thanks so much bye thanks for joining us on IT Mastermind Talks don't miss out on our next episode hit the follow button and stay updated want to be our next podcast guests contact us and share your expertise with our audience visit www.IT Mastermind Talks.com for more