057: Your Vision Will Create Motivation & Profit

A business with a purposeful vision and clear goals is vital to create the clarity, motivation and momentum required to act on the granular and sometimes mundane tasks that are required to bring these ideas to life.

By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:

• How to re-create your vision in one sitting (instead of overly complex exercises)
• How re-connecting to your vision will move into motivation and momentum
• Why asking the simple question of ‘why are we doing any of this’ is vital to understanding the underlying intentions which will guide you forward

Enjoy!

Blog Post: A Purposeful Vision: The Catalyst for Business Progress, Momentum and Profit

Resources:

• Website
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If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.

Transcript

Shannon Stone: 0:41

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Whatever time it is, you are listening to this podcast.

Shannon Stone: 0:46

Welcome, I'm super excited to jump into this episode. Today we are talking all about your vision for your business, and it's actually a really important one because it helps to build progress in your business. It helps to build momentum and, ultimately, helps you to build profit as well. I'm doing a writing challenge at the moment and we are tasked with writing a series of blog articles, and one of them the first one I've done, is about the vision and how this helps. It's one of the things that I look at when I work with people setting their goals, but what are the reasons for this? Because I always think and I do this for myself as well anytime things are just not happening or you're not feeling motivated, I always try to reconnect back to the vision. Why am I doing any of this at all? And there's been times when I've had to recommit to the vision a lot more frequently than other times. And that is okay. Life happens, business happens, and sometimes we have to really look back at our vision a lot more frequently than other times. What I always find is that it's having that purposeful vision that helps us in the day to day when we're doing the menial task or the mundane tasks, the things that you know maybe aren't your favorite things to do, but it's the vision that can help you to say, well, it's worth it for me to do my bookkeeping, or it's worth it for me to do these sales activities, because the vision is so purposeful and so strong, so meaningful to you, that it helps to build that progress, build that momentum. And when you're working on your business, it's these type of things that help you to grow it, to grow your revenue, to grow your profit, build that business that you're actually looking for. I will link to the article, which is on the website and on LinkedIn as well. So feel free to connect with me, shannon Stone, on LinkedIn.

Shannon Stone: 2:45

But what I did find almost like side note to this is when you and like I'm a great writer I do consider myself an excellent writer, but I don't write as much as I used to. I think the podcast is probably a big reason for that. I love to do the podcast, but I definitely did a lot more writing in the past and what I found, and I'm finding, is when you sit down to think about what you're going to write. So when I decided I'm going to first do the blog article on vision, because that's the first thing I'd like to do with my clients, I had to really think through well, what do we actually do here? Why actually is this important? It helps you to really like dissect it for yourself to see, like, how does this actually fit in and is it even worthy of turning it into a six 7,000 word blog article? So I do encourage you to sit down and do some writing because it really gets you thinking. It's a great way to document your IP as well in your business. But, yeah, it kind of sparked the, I guess the idea to share this on the podcast as well.

Shannon Stone: 3:58

So I found a great quote and it said a goal without a purpose is a journey without meaning. Quote, and it said a goal without a purpose is a journey without meaning. So a goal without a purpose is a journey without meaning. So I talk about goals a lot but I do find like a goal is a goal, a revenue goal is a revenue goal, but the reason for it, like what's the purpose behind it is really the reason that that goal even gets going. And it's very easy for people to give up on their goals and to just say, oh yeah, like that is the goal that I set at the start of the year or the start of the month or even the start of the week. But if you don't know the reason why you're doing it, the purpose, the intention, the vision behind it, it's no better off than any other goal out there. You kind of almost like plucked it out of the ether and you're not doing anything with it. So if you don't do anything or enough with the goals that you have, maybe it's that you need to sit down and re-look at your vision again, maybe for the first time, or maybe for the first time in a long time. So hopefully this episode will help you to get going on that vision again and give you some ideas about how you can create that vision that makes sense for you, that actually builds your business at the same time. So I'll run you through a few different categories to help you to create the vision.

Shannon Stone: 5:18

But what I find with this is like I would just sit there with a Google Doc or pen and paper and if you don't know this idea of stream of consciousness, it's like what's the first thing that comes to mind? Like I hate turning things into like framework-y technical exercises. I'm like what's the first thing that comes to mind? Like I'd rather be more of a conversationalist than a like an overly complex exercise about getting what? Like achieving the same goal. So stream of consciousness approach right first, what comes to mind, because I think sometimes as well, that's like the most authentic, raw answers that you could come, that could come out of it, rather than some overly crafted, overly thinking through what it should be in inverted commas. So keep that in mind. It will be the action step. If you haven't guessed already, it will be to write out your vision. But these are a few different things that are going to help you to do that.

Shannon Stone: 6:20

So, with your vision now some people might say, yep, I know my vision super easy, and they're probably not listening to this. But for the rest of us, sometimes we need a few different prompts. So the first one is to know that your vision needs to be both short term and long term. So, with your business and I think personal is very tight, business owners like you cannot get away from it your personal life is tied very closely to your business, so sometimes it's looking at it holistically and, at the same time, knowing that Important visionary parts of your business are also going to come from your personal aspects, as I will share in some of the highlights from my own vision as well.

Shannon Stone: 7:02

So, with your vision needing to be both short term and long term, you might say, okay, for now, here's something that I would like to achieve in the short term. For some people it's that they don't want to work Fridays Like it could be something like that. It doesn't have to be a revenue thing and in fact, I would encourage it to not be. It needs to be something personal, motivating, specific to you, something that you actually want to happen. So you might say I want to work towards in the next six months, in the short term, taking Fridays off, and for someone else it could be that you don't want to work nighttimes anymore. Maybe that's the vision that you want to work towards and it can seem so simple and like is that even exciting? But to some people it absolutely is. It's like they might be so fed up with working nighttimes and everyone can do business however they want to do it, and if that's meaningful enough to you, then that's all it needs to be.

Shannon Stone: 8:01

So what is something in the short term? And then also, your vision needs to be something in the long term as well, and I think the long term being three, five, 10 years, something that is just out there enough that it just pulls you forward. So what is something bigger? That kind of it might be the type of business that you want to create or certain things that you want to achieve. Maybe it's certain purchases that you want to do. You want to buy a house or get a second house, or you want to get into investing, or you want to buy a business, or you want to do certain things Like what is a vision that's further out there. That is not going to happen overnight, but the choices you make today, the goals that you have today, are going to lead you towards that future vision. So your vision needs to be both short term something now and then also something into the future as well. Next thing, your vision will evolve. Now you might set this really long-term vision and when you get to it you might say actually that is not the vision that I wanted anymore. Or maybe you achieved the vision that you first set.

Shannon Stone: 9:09

When I started my business. The whole reason was I wanted to. Basically, the reason why I left workplaces is that I didn't have the flexibility that I wanted as a single parent working around my daughter and she went to before school care and after school care. If I'd put in annual leave, that would get rejected. I just didn't really have the control over my own schedule the way that I wanted just didn't really have the control over my own schedule the way that I wanted. So to me that was a big catalyst and that was my vision for starting my business and that was the vision I held to build my business. It's that I want complete freedom and flexibility of my time so that I can work around my daughter's schedule and be the kind of parent that I want to be. So that was my vision and I shared this on the note that your vision will evolve because what I found.

Shannon Stone: 10:04

So when I started my business, I went full time from the beginning. I picked up clients very quickly in the beginning as well, and I was busy ever since, which I'm very, very grateful for and so I achieved that vision pretty early on, which is amazing. But one thing that I didn't do is I didn't evolve the vision. So I achieved that vision very quickly, but I held onto that and I guess it just became a value of mine where my business is something that needs to be flexible around being, you know, the parent that I want to be around my daughter all these kinds of things that I set for myself. And I achieved that very quickly. But I forgot that the vision actually needs to evolve and I need to find a new vision because that one had been achieved.

Shannon Stone: 10:51

So, whether it kind of happens to you in that scenario or just when you kind of get closer to that vision, it's like that's actually not what I want anymore, or maybe I did achieve it. Just know that the vision is meant to evolve, but I think there's still a purpose for it. Say it evolves in a way because you don't want that particular vision that you set anymore. Maybe you don't want to, I don't know set up your business in a particular way that you thought you did to, I don't know. Set up your business in a particular way that you thought you did. That is okay. It's there to help you move forward and every decision that you make, the further progress you make forward, it just gives you the answers for what the next iteration of the vision is going to be. So it's not redundant. If you set a vision that you don't want anymore, I think there's plenty of reason for having it, and part of it is coming back to the day-to-day that vision. As long as it helps you to progress forward day-to-day, it gets you moving forward day-to-day, the vision is serving a purpose, even if that vision changes. So that's the point on your vision will evolve.

Shannon Stone: 11:52

Now your vision needs to be personal. So the difference between one person. So we can all have the exact same goals, right, but why we achieve them is for very different reasons. And when your vision is personal to you, like my vision was around creating that freedom and flexibility around my daughter. That was very personal to me. It's like it didn't matter what any other person was trying to achieve, like that was just very specific to me. And so I think the vision always needs to be personal to you, whether it comes through in a in a business sense maybe there's particular visionary things within the business landscape that is personal to you, but still in that business context or maybe it's on that personal front where in that case that I shared it was about the type of mom I wanted to be.

Shannon Stone: 12:45

So your vision definitely needs to be personal, because it's like why would we try to go for something that someone else has decided for us or you've picked it off the internet because it sounded really good? Maybe you looked up vision statements and you're like, yeah, that sounds like a really good vision and we're in that kind of same industry or we've got that same kind of values. It's like get the vision from you, don't get it from anyone else or anywhere else. So your vision needs to be purposeful, personal and purposeful. The last two I'm going to combine them. So your vision needs to serve your clients, but I often say your vision needs to serve you as the business owner as equal as it serves your clients. So, especially for business owners, I see that if the business is not suiting you, it's never going to suit your clients. So you have to find the equal balance and actually you'll probably find that when you create the business that serves you first, it's also going to serve your clients as well. So there is two parts to this, because I joined them together.

Shannon Stone: 13:50

But how does your vision serve your clients? What kind of business do you want to create for the type of people you want to serve? You're not trying to serve every single person in your industry, every single person who has the problem that you can solve. Who are your people? How do you want to help them? How do you want to serve them? How do you want to make a difference with them? And then, equally, how can your business serve you as the business owner? Is your ultimate vision to one day sell your business? Is your ultimate vision to grow it and get staff to run most of it? And you sit in a managing director position? Is your vision to have more of a lifestyle business? What is that vision of your business that serves you as the business owner and then the other side is keeping that in mind. How can it also serve your clients as well? And that's when I find we create these amazing businesses that are unique to us, that still do everything that we need it to do. We're still serving our clients in the ways that we want to serve them, but it's serving everyone equally, because we've sat down and we've looked at these questions and we've answered them.

Shannon Stone: 15:00

So the last thing that I'll end on is probably, I guess, the birthplace in my business, where asking my clients about the vision in one word or another came from, and it was asking the question why are we doing any of this? Or when they would tell me a goal, it's like, well, tell me, like why, like I want to know why. And I remember a particular client, and it would have happened many times before, but this was just such a obvious scenario where I was like I can never not ask this question. But she said she wanted to earn a particular amount in her business and I asked her why. And she said I want to earn that, so then I can go off and start this business over here, a new business she hadn't actually started before and she basically it's like a means to an end I want to make this amount of money here so then I can go over there and do what I actually want to do and actually earn the same amount, if not more, over there, and a lot of people do this all the time. It's like that means to end type of thinking, and so I just kind of like explored that a little bit more, like, tell me about what it is you actually want to do.

Shannon Stone: 16:18

And what I was trying to do is see, well, is there validity for her right now to go off and start this new business, have this new business model, make the money she's wanting to make in the business she wants to have, because she didn't actually want to have the one that we were discussing in the first place. And so just by asking, why are we doing any of this or why is that goal? Just hearing in a non-frameworky, just a stream of consciousness, conversational approach, she was able to say, well, I want to go over there and start that and that's something I've always wanted to do. She had all the experience to do so. She just needed the strategy, the belief, the permission slip to go off and be able to do it. And so she basically culled that initial business and went off and started the new one and was very, very successful with it. And this is I don't. Like. Five years later maybe more, to be honest, it's probably like eight years later she's still running that same business.

Shannon Stone: 17:20

And it came back and she will say that too. It came back to that conversation or asking, like, why do you want this and why don't you just go off and do what you really want to do? So I'm always very mindful or aware of means to end thinking. Same thing comes up in strategies as well. It's like we'll do this so we can get to those people, so we can go off and do that thing. It's like you could just cut out all that middle bit and just go straight to what you want. If you have the right strategy, I think almost anything is possible. Okay, so kind of running this home.

Shannon Stone: 17:54

The action step that I have for you is to write out your vision, and feel free to look at the transcript or the blog post that'll have some questions in there or re-listen to this. But basically two things you need when it comes to the vision Think of something in the short term. What's something that will drive you for now. What's something you want to achieve in the next six months? For example, just a little bit, a little bit down the road, but not too far down the road, just something where it's like you can almost taste it, but you know you've got to put some work into it. Maybe it's taking Fridays off, maybe it is not working nighttimes, maybe it's that you want to book, you know, a three-day weekend away, for example. Whatever it might be, but something in the short term.

Shannon Stone: 18:43

What's a vision that you can set for yourself? Not a goal, but something to pull you forward, and in a way it could be a goal because you reward yourself with it. You still got to achieve it, but it's not about making a particular revenue amount. It's not about about I want X number of clients. That'll come next. But first you've got to set the vision, what you actually want, why you actually want it.

Shannon Stone: 19:06

So something in the short term. And the second is what is something in the long term? What's a longer term vision that you have Just as clear as you can see it for today? So in five or 10 years, what do you want your business to look like? And just kind of paint the picture of it and just make it look as good as you can, based on the knowledge that you have today. That's all anyone can ever do. That five or 10 year mark can come around and that vision could be completely different. That's why I say the vision will evolve.

Shannon Stone: 19:36

But having something that excites you, that pulls you forward and says, yeah, that is the type of business that I do want to create. Even if it ends up being something completely different, that is okay. The purpose is that it helps you to get through the day-to-day activities now. It gives you that momentum, it gives you that progress and when you're plugging it into the right areas in your business, it also builds your profit as well. And that is what I have for you today the power of your vision, how it can be a catalyst for business progress, momentum and profit.

Shannon Stone: 20:11

If you have any questions about it, definitely ask. It is definitely an exercise if you haven't done it in a while or, most importantly, if you feel a little bit removed from having that motivation in your business and you're not really sure why you're doing what you're doing. You still do the do, you still do the things, but you're kind of lacking that little bit of like substance. I would always sit down and look at your vision and just say what do I want? Why am I doing any of this? And this episode is an amazing start for that. So hopefully you take the action steps and any questions you can always reach out and let me know. I will link the blog article into the show notes so you can check that one out. But in the meantime, I hope you have an amazing week and I'll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks for listening. If you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to send it to a friend. The best podcasts I have found have all been recommended to me. If you can spread the word by sharing this episode, I can spend more time helping you by creating episodes just like this one. Send it, text it, tell somebody about it. Whatever you need to do, the more you spread the word, the more I can focus on creating needle-moving episodes to help you and your friends.