Episode 423: Thinking Time - It's All Downhill From Here
Bradley Hamner argues that owner-driven vision is what matters most in a small business. He walks through two cases: a multi-owner company that grew from under $500k to millions by codifying shared vision, then lost direction when it faded, and a solo founder who hit burnout and realized tactics alone wouldn't work without a refreshed vision.
Ask yourself these two questions. Number one, what matters? And number two, what are you going to do about it? What matters to you? Is it time, money, flexibility? How much money? How much time off do you want? Growth? How much growth? Profitability? How profitable? Revenue milestones, achievements, awards, pins, plaques, trophies, trips. What matters to you? And then number two, what are you going to do about it?
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Hey everyone. Well, as I often do, there will be a topic or several experiences that I seem to have with business owners around the country back to back to back, not necessarily on the same day. And it really gets my wheels spinning. I start to feel a lot of conviction. And so the name of this episode is It's Downhill from Here. I believe ultimately that everything that you want in your business and the plan to get there is downhill from the vision that you have for your company. I believe that there is, of all the things there is, I think the single most crucial element for every business, more than your team, more than your offer, more than your strategy, more than your marketing plan, more than anything else, is the vision that you have for that company. Because what you sell, how you sell it, who you hire, who you don't hire, everything is downhill from that vision. You know, we talk a lot about becoming the architect of your business, and what architects use they use blueprints. But ultimately, the blueprint is often a vision of what the owner of that land, that house, that building, of what they envision. So one of my coaches, Daniel Priestley, was recently in Dubai, and he happened to show a video of just all of the construction that's happening in Dubai. And You see the millions, hundreds of millions of dollars that are being spent. But at the end of the day, even there, that all started with a vision. Somebody had a vision for what it is that they wanted to do in that space. So I'm gonna give you two recent stories, and I think one will be a slight cautionary tale, and then another one has a good ending, one that has evolved over time. So one of the businesses I've worked with for a number of years, they were doing in the less than half a million dollars in top line revenue years ago when we first started to work together. And through their work, I'm not going to take credit for the growth that they have had, but they're doing several million dollars in top line revenue now. And one of the things that they were able to do, there's 3 owners of this company. One of the things that they were able to do is they formulated a vision that ultimately got down into paper with triggers when certain milestones were hit. Then one of the owners got an additional tranche of equity, so to speak, when certain milestones were hit, and that capped out at a certain level. And so the entire team, the entire leadership team was very much on the same page about where is this company going and getting there and what do we need to do to get there? What's it take for us to get to that number? And they got there. They got there this year, something they had worked to get to over the last 4 to 5 years. They crossed it this year. And so there was this period of time that in speaking to some of the founders, they found themselves kind of waffling, floating, almost like a boat without a rudder or a sailboat without sails. They had no direction. They just kind of were doing. And the reason is because they had worked for so long having a crystal clear vision. Now, look, there was a period of time for them to be able to acknowledge the wins that they had had, acknowledge the success that they had had, and kind of sit at the table of success for a period of time. But quickly, they started to say, "We need to have a unified vision." And ultimately, they did the work and have done the work to then be able to be unified once again on now where's the company going. And so there's one that was very crystal clear. They were just absolutely marching because they were able to hold the vision in their mind's eye. They were able to keep both of their eyes— well, in this case, I guess, 6 eyes— but keep a focus even through difficult seasons, difficult months, difficult quarters over the last several years, which, of course, they had team turnover. They had all the normal things that come to business, but they were able to push through that because they were so on the same page. And then they kind of lost their way whenever that vision was no longer in place. And so they went back in. And again, this is why I say it is downhill from the vision you have in the business. Everything is downhill from that. And so another company last few years had been Also, maybe not as crystallized of a vision, smaller company, ironically happens to be 3 founders. I don't think that that matters as much, although it does matter to get alignment between 3 people, sure. But for most of you listening to this, you're a small business owner that you are the equity holder in that business. And so you don't have to necessarily be thinking about the other two owners or somebody else in the business about what is their vision and making sure that there's alignment within that. Most of the view, it's your business. And so you can't be removed. And really, in my opinion, the only thing that you can't delegate is the vision that you have for that company. And so in this case, we started to, at the time of this recording, it's at the very end of December. And so there was some discussion at the beginning of What does 2025 look like? And they're in, admittedly, a rough patch. That they had grown the business to a point that is honestly beyond what they really felt like that they were capable of doing. But they've now hit what Dan Martell calls the pain line. And that's what they're experiencing. They're tired, they're a little burned out, and they gotta make a fundamental change. In their own words, they said, "What got us here is just not the thing that's going to get us to where we want to go." And so there were some discussions initially about 2025, and there were some discussions initially about hiring or replacing some recent turnover in the organization. And I said, "All of that does have to be decided, and there's a strategic business move that also needs a consideration of where they kind of go and how to do it, the strategy behind it, the tactics, who's on the team. All of that stuff is— does need to be decided, but it's honestly a waste of time if those things are looked at in a vacuum as opposed to where are we trying to go. And I'm going to give you two key questions to ask yourself I think if you try to ask yourself, like, what's the vision? It feels a little too businessy. As much as I am a love business myself. But let me ask you, let me give you two questions. And these are not questions that I wish I could take credit for because they're honestly so simple, yet they're so profound. Ask yourself these two questions. Number one, what matters? And number two, what are you going to do about it? What matters to you? Is it time, money, flexibility? How much money? How much time off do you want? Growth? How much growth? Profitability? How profitable? Revenue milestones, achievements, awards, pins, plaques, trophies, trips? What matters to you? And then number 2, what are you going to do about it? If you can begin to answer those questions, you begin to start to crystallize ultimately the thing that puts everything else in alignment, because everything else is downhill from the answer to that question. I fundamentally believe that. At the end of the day, for both companies, I make it very clear to anybody that I work with in any capacity in any of the programs, I never wanna project my thoughts on what your vision of your business should be. That is not my role, but whatever the vision is that you have for that company, have one, and then go build the machine that goes and helps you get there. Go build the business. Install the operating system that gets what it is that you have designed intentionally. Don't forget, as an entrepreneur, you get to— you don't have to. The key thing is, is that you've designed it that way instead of defaulted. I hope this has served you. I hope 2024 was a great year, and I hope that you go and design 2025 to work for you. If you like this, check out my website, go to blueprintos.com, book in a scale game plan call. We'll work together to help you to be able to scale your business in 2025 and beyond. All right, everyone, till next time, lead well and go be great.
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