Vision or Mission

Foreign. Hey there, contractors. It's Jim Johnson here, your host with Contractor Radio and the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro. Today we're going to be talking about something that's extremely important to the aspect of your business, actually achieving the goals and aspirations that it has. It's important to understand the difference between a vision and a mission and how I think that out there in the world those things are confused about what they are and the words get mixed up a little bit. So we're going to talk about the difference between those two things and how they apply to your business and how you can get them to be understood by the people that work for you and with you in your company. But before we do, I want to talk to you a little bit about one of our sponsors. This sponsor is called get the Referral. And get the Referral has been one of those companies that we have come across that we just absolutely have to tell everybody about. It makes getting referrals easy. These guys do an amazing job with helping you guys not only get more referrals, but reward those referrals in an automated way, making it something that people want to do. They literally see money go in their bank account. It's pretty amazing to watch. It's pretty amazing to do. Get a demo with. Get the Referral today. That's getthereferral.com. all right, guys, so we're here to talk about mission and vision, or vision and mission. Which order is it? Is it the chicken or the egg? Are they the same thing? And out there in traditional business, you will hear those terms used almost interchangeably. Vision statement, mission statement. And I think they're actually confused. I think that one is one thing and one is another thing. So let's start with vision. Vision is, from a company perspective, how you see yourself in the future. It doesn't have a date on it, but it is present tense. You're sitting here today, and at some point in the future, you will be this. And so when you write your vision statement, it's a picture or the story or an explanation, the climax maybe of your story. That is what you will become. This thing is usually about a page long. It's very clear, very succinct. It's not a bunch of crazy words like maximize and dominate and things like that. It is specific. It's who you're going to be. People struggle with putting these together. There's lots of training that's available out there on these things, but I want to clarify more of what they are than what you should write. Necessarily. And this vision is from a company perspective, like I said, who we're going to become. We want that thing to be something that is written down. It's a proven fact that you are 70% more likely to achieve that vision or climax of your story if you write it down and share it with somebody else. By writing it down, it makes it real. By sharing it with somebody else, it makes you accountable. Which accountability to? To our aspirations, our goals and what we want to be. When you tell somebody that and they understand what it is, you're now accountable. Remember that thing you told me you were going to become? When is that going to happen? And we don't want to put a date to it, but we do want to realize that we're on a journey. We're on a journey to get there. And this is what that picture looks like at the end. And to enjoy that journey along the way, to see little pieces of it getting put in place. You might do it from the perspective of what it's like to be a part of your company. We will be. Is a great way to start. Our client is a great way to start. You're speaking in the present tense. That if at some point in the future somebody were to read it, they would go, yep, that's exactly who they are. You may not be that today. I would avoid putting monetary numbers in there as well. That shouldn't be the goal. The goal is what it will be like, this field, this climax to the story. Will it be a place of growth and leadership? Will it be a place of competition? Will it be a place of betterment of my fellow human? Will it be a place where teams work together, they defend each other? Or will it be a place that's possibly about your customer, or maybe both? Will it be a home services company where the clients get an experience they've never had before and then explain exactly what that experience is? What this vision is, is it's your purpose. It's why you're doing what you do. There's been a lot of talk about our why and stuff like that. It's something that we should really think. Simon Sneck has a great book about it called Start with why. I think it' a really good book that he put together about understanding the importance of why you're doing something. Because if your why is really clear and it's passionate and emotional, people that are aligned with you will want to be a part of it. They'll help. Want to help you achieve. Achieve it, which is what it's all about. We're trying to achieve this end goal. And great leaders tend to want people to hop on that bus with them and help them get there. It's very rare that somebody does something amazing by themselves. It takes a large team and that large team are all doing different things to help you achieve your goal. So talk about that team, what that team looks like, who they will be, from a character aspect, from a core value aspect, from a leadership aspect. You want to paint that picture really clear. Now once you get that picture kind of done, you want to take that and say, okay, what are we doing here? What is this thing? And that what thing is your why? And we want to sum that up into a shorter statement that actually starts off your vision. For example, here at Contractor Coach Pro and Contractor Radio, our why is to empower people to believe, to believe in themselves, us as their guides and their journey with us. And hopefully that there's a higher power out there that has a plan for us all and gives us hope. That's our why. That's why we do what we do. We're here to serve others. Now the rest of our vision is something that we share internally with each other. Every employee that ever comes here is the first thing that we talk about because we want them to understand who we're going to be. We may not be that yet, but we want them to know who we're going to be. So I want to be really clear about that. There's a picture in the future. It is not time oriented necessarily. It's not about numbers or fancy words. It's about what it's going to be like to work in your business or interact with your business and the clarity of how your business operates. Is it a well oiled machine where everybody's doing what they're doing and you can go on vacation for six months? Maybe that's part of your vision, but you're saying that as if it's real. And now the idea being that to get there to that vision, where that end point is, this climax of your story, I'm going to say that over and over again because I want you to hone in that. That's the part that it is. It's not all the lead up, it's not what happens after. It is the big shebang. It is the ultimate goal is what you are after. We get that thing written down, we share it with others, we find alignment with them and then we start to develop a mission. And the mission is a little bit different. We look at it from a military aspect not as a mission statement. This is an actual mission. It has a period of time associated with it that is not focused on the end goal of winning the war or achieving your vision. It is focused on the here and the now, the next steps we need to take to get there. And it's still a bigger picture than your daily duties or what you're going to do this month. We highly suggest that you do it for a year. You say in this year, these are the things that we're going to do to achieve one step forward to our ultimate vision. And so in looking at that, how do we put that together? How do we, how do we put together our mission? Well, first off, we got to determine what the goal of the mission is. We have this big vision we're after. What goal do we need to achieve in this time frame to actually achieve the mission? Or, I'm sorry, the vision. And so we get the goal down, whatever that may be. And it isn't always money. You know, numbers could be included there. Like we want to hit 10 million. But what's the goal of the actual mission as it applies to the vision? Did we bring in new people that are aligned with us, that are growth oriented and going in the direction we want? Do we find that key person that we needed to grow our team or to integrate and implement the things that we need? We want to say that the goal of the mission is to achieve something as a step along the way to that vision. And so be clear about that goal. It's not something that's usually like, hey, I want to hit 10 million. It's more than that. And so we get that written down. And through writing down what that goal is, we come up with an operational name. Remember, we're thinking military here. I've got this military mission. I've got to go out there and achieve this thing. And so I need a rallying cry. I to need. I need everybody to understand that this thing is something that we're focused on for this year. Because that's what a mission does. It gives you focus, it gives you the plan for what it is that you need to do. And so I've decided that my goal is to do some things, whatever those things are. And from those things, it's given me an operational name. Operation Domination, Operation Takeover. Operation Organization, Operation Foundation. And so depending on where you're at in your business, you're going to have different operations that you're after and things that you need to do at certain times in order to achieve that ultimate vision. And so I've got now the goal of the mission, the operational name. The next aspect of what I have to do is I have to start to figure out a little bit of the numbers. So what are those numbers that we need to achieve? We've got some numbers to hit. There's going to be some assets that we need, and there's also going to be a definition of success. So what is the defining factor that says we actually achieved the mission and if we didn't achieve the mission, where did we fail and why? So we can think critically about the importance of doing that thing, or maybe not doing that thing because we didn't need it. A lot of times you'll achieve the overall mission. We hit these numbers, we did these things, but we could still fail in areas that are towards our vision. So you want to make sure that you get pretty clear on the mission aspect of your business. So we put in our numbers and we say, hey, these are the numbers we want to hit. And it's not just the 10 million, it's I want to hit 10 million. I want to be this profitable, I want to serve this many people. I want to have this many new people in my company. I want these positions filled, this number of locations, anything that's number oriented, we want to get that in that numbers aspect of our mission. It starts to put, to put into place measurements for our mission. We also need to understand the assets that we need. And so with any type of military mission, there's all types of assets there, there's the people themselves, there's specific people that do specific things. There's ammunition, there's munitions, there's artillery, there's boats, planes, tanks, you name it. All kinds of stuff that people need in order to actually accomplish the mission. And our suggestion, whenever you're figuring out your mission, is to really have two columns, two columns of the assets you need. And one of them is the column that has all the assets you already have. They're done, they're ready to go, those are in place. And then the ones I actually need to get in place to accomplish the mission, because we need all of those assets. We got things we already have, things that we're going to need. Once I have those figured out and it's starting to get clear what this mission is going to look like, we then want to make sure of what success looks like. If we don't know what the end goal is before we start a mission, everybody goes off willy nilly doing a bunch of different things. But if we can always Come back to what that mission is and saying, hey, this is the goal, this is the operation, this is the numbers, and these are the assets we need. We can stay focused there. We have a purpose and we have a plan, and so we want to make sure what success looks like. Now, I could have some numbers in there, but the reality is that the business took another step forward, and you wanted to find what that step was and how it applies to your overall vision. The mission is also a little bit different than the vision in the fact of who does it. The vision really is. It's the owner. It's the person that runs the show. It is the person that, hey, I sat down. I'm putting all my blood, sweat and tears in this. This is the picture I have in mind for my business. Now, if there's partners, those two do them together. We highly suggest doing them separately first and then coming together, sharing with each other what that vision is and see what your alignment is and where you may have to compromise. Because any partnership is like a marriage and a divorce, and a partnership in business sometimes can be worse than a divorce in a marriage. And so we need to get on the same page if we're partners. So we need to understand where the other person's going, come together, figure out where we're going to go together. And that's our vision. From the ownership aspect of things. On the mission side of things, as you grow, you know, first it might just be you. You're the only person. So you're designing your own mission and vision. But as you start to bring leaders into your equation, you want to get them to help you build your mission. You want them to be a part of it. You want them to be bought into it. Because if you don't have people bought into the mission that you're going after, they've already bought into your vision. You sold them that idea that they're going to be a part of something really good and really amazing, and they're aligned with it. But this mission being more tactical, we have to have people bought in and a part of it. People don't gain belief in something if we just come to them and say, hey, this is the thing we're going to do, go do it. They have to be a part of this thing that they're going to do. So get them to help you determine what the goal of the operation is. Have them be the ones that lead the operational name. The more it's their idea, the more likely you are to succeed. Have them help determine what the Assets are what the numbers and goals are that need to be achieved for this mission. And best of all, have them define success. When we as owners are the ones that are the only ones saying what's going to happen, we still own all the results. But when we allow others to step in and start to be a part of that decision making, process, goal setting, aspect of what we do, they own it. And because they own it, they're now accountable to it. And so it was a really great thing because I can then go, hey, that wasn't my idea, that was your idea and we didn't hit it. Or that was your idea and that was amazing. You get to give them recognition for making that thing happen. So as your company grows, you involve people in the mission side of things. The vision thing, that's yours, you own it. Now, we have had people that we work with that involve others that are important to them in that vision. But for me, I got a pretty good picture and I'm going to share it with everybody that ever comes into my business. Does that picture change over time? Absolutely. I suggest sitting down and evaluating your vision. Every year things change, technology changes, ways of doing business change, market conditions change. And so you have to look at that aspect of what you do and go. Does that affect our vision? Here at Contractor Coach Pro, our vision has been at the same point to empower people to believe, but the way that we do that has shifted a little bit here and there, all because the team has brought those things to my attention, giving me better clarity so that I can modify the vision and share that with everybody and keep us on the same page. Every time we sit down and we do a mission, that mission is totally oriented on that vision. Everybody knows the vision we've all talked about. We set the scene with it. What are the next steps to get there? We sit down and work it out together. We suggest that whenever you do your vision aspect of your business, get away from everything, shoot, go on a weekend somewhere else if you can. If you can, get a hotel room, someplace beautiful, sit by a lake on a chair and really think about what is your business going to look like in the future, what's the ultimate goal with your business? And then whenever you do your mission, same thing. No distractions, no tv, no social media, no people bugging you, anything like that. And as your team grows, go off site, get away from the office and do that thing together and do a great job of it, and then hold each other accountable to it. One of the things that we do is once that mission has been determined. We design a meeting around that called a mission meeting. We help a lot of our customers with that mission meeting. It is the thing that keeps us on track. It's always focused on the goal of that mission, the assets we need. Every aspect of everything we do is, and our business is built around that mission, which is designed to help us achieve our vision. Every week we meet about it. Our leadership team does every week. You should sit down and look at it and evaluate it, figure out what the next task is that needs to be done in order to hit some of those milestones that are happening. And so when you build out this mission, there's one other really important thing. You got to figure out what you're doing. Tactical operating priorities are, we call them tops. And our tops are the biggest thing I got to hit for the year. These two or three things that if I hit those, my mission is likely to succeed. One of our goals this year was to start creating groups and doing some group coaching with people because we believe in the value of peer to peer review and that there's value there to each person that's in a group. But we don't want to lose the personal interaction. That's one of the things, one of our secret sauce things, it's part of our vision, is that we want to be in relationship with our clients. So we couldn't have gigantic groups. All we could have were small groups. And if we do have a large group, those groups have to be able to go into breakouts and work together in a small fashion and work with us so that we get to know each other, so that we're in community with each other, we're connected. That's what we look for. And that's our thing. It's our mission. That's what we're on. And we've got one of those groups out, we have another one that was planned, that's coming out and we see those things coming to fruition. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, a lot of battling back and forth and challenge with our leaders here to get those things done. And through all of that, that journey, I sit here today and I look at it and I go, wow, man, look what we did. That's pretty awesome. My team is amazing. These things are being done and they got finished. And what got finished is awesome and well done. Sometimes we get in a big hurry to try and get things done fast, when if we do them better and proactively, we're a lot more likely to succeed. I'm the worst. I'm the visionary in the business. I always want everything to be done right now I know what it looks like, Go do it, and we'll just slap it together and put it out there. My team has helped me to realize that the better that we plan things out, the better that we put things together, the more likely they are to actually come to life and exist. And those things are happening. They're taking more time than I would like, but the end result is beyond what I imagined. That's what the goal is of our vision and mission should be, is to create that type of dynamic in our business. So once again, mission. We've got our goal, we've got our operational name. We've got these two or three priorities that we're after. Like, we want to create a training program. It's a big thing. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort to really do it right. We'd love to snap our fingers and see that thing happen, but it doesn't work that way. So we take little bites out of it. It does end up getting done. I can't express how important it is to get those priorities right. Those priorities that you choose to say, these are the things we're going to do in the coming year. These are the big milestones we have to accomplish. The major objective of our mission is these two or three things. Never more than that. Don't take on so much that you end up failing. When we fail, we stop doing things. We don't enjoy what we're doing, and we lose our energy for it. So when you start with priorities for this year, especially when you're smaller, just pick two, pick two. If you have to pick three, pick three. But get two done. See the result, have the win, accomplish the mission, experience success, and you'll find that you'll want to do a little bit more, and you'll have more people that you can add to the equation. So pick out those two priorities. They should take at least a year's amount of time or whatever time you've set for this. That, you know, they're big. It's going to take a while to get them done. And then we want to break those things down into numbers. The assets we need and then the tasks that are going to have to be done with them. That's what that mission meeting is for. All right, we got these big priorities. What are the two or three things that we could do this week to get there? We keep just chinking the armor until we get through and It's a big obstacle. There's a big thing in our way, a big hurdle to overcome. We just keep taking another little bite out of it. I hope that helps you with understanding the difference between the two. One is very end game, climax of the story. This is what we're after. It's our purpose. The other is how we're going to do is a designed plan to say this is the first step that we've got to take and then we're going to take another step next year. We're going to take another step next year. All of those things being part of the journey to get to that ultimate goal or ultimate vision. Thanks for joining us here today on Contractor Radio. We love what we do. We love helping you guys out. If you have questions about any of this, please reach out to myself, Jim Johnson. You can give me a head coach@contractorcoachpro.com and I'll answer those questions. If you're interested in getting any kind of coaching from us, click on our calendar link on our website. Go take our assessment on our website first and you'll get that calendar link back and we will sit down and we'll talk with you about your business. Thanks for being here today. We hope you enjoyed the show. We hope you got something out of it. We hope you get some clarity. That's the big thing we want. Want some clarity. This is what a vision is. I'm going to go do that vision. That's what the picture of my company is going to be in the future. Not a date on it. And then there's this mission. What are the first steps that I have to do to get there? These big steps going to take a whole year to do. We're going to take chinks out of the armor until that whole thing is done. There's nothing more amazing than accomplishing your mission, celebrating with everybody. And one of the best ways to really get people behind the mission is reward them with the mission is accomplished. Do something cool. Take your team on vacation, take them on an overnight, do a retreat, bring in a special guest. Do something that, hey, man, this is going to be cool. If you guys get this done. I'm going to do this for you. So that's what we want to talk about with vision and mission. We hope that you find it valuable. We hope that you implement this into your business. We look forward to talking to you in our next episode.