How to master patience in business, invest and spend wisely
Define vision, think long-term, build a plan, take it slow and steady.
As I’ve watched entrepreneurs over the years, I’ve observed that, while everyone would like to be successful immediately, those who build long term success and wealth often do it over a long period of time.
That’s why I’ve always given my sons the advice “to get rich slowly” and to ignore the idea of “getting rich quickly”. Let’s explore how to do that.
Define your vision
The first challenge in building long-term success is to have a vision of what that looks like. Most small businesses owners don’t have a plan for the next year, let alone the next decade. Often, it’s easier, I think, to start by developing a 10-year plan.
Where do you want to be in 25 years? As you think about that try not to consider where you are today. Just focus on where you want to end up.
Understand that you are not building a vision of your future. This is about what you want, not what you can guarantee. Write that vision down and be as descriptive as possible. If numbers are important, try to limit them to one or two.
For example, “I want my business to have $10 million in revenue” or I want a personal income of $2 million dollars per year”. What’s important here isn’t how you will get there, but where you want to go.
Now that you have a long-term vision for your future, give yourself a confidence boost. Turn around and look at where you were 25 years ago. If you can, put that point in your past in numbers and compare to where you are now. What almost everyone sees is that they have made tremendous progress.
Think long-term
Once you have solidified your long-term vision, refine it with what the Entrepreneurial Operating System inventor Gino Wickman calls the “10 Year Picture”. Here you want to be a little more detailed than in the 25-year vision. Be more descriptive and use more numbers.
An example might be “I want my business to have $3 million in revenue with a profit of $500,000 and I want to employ 15 high-performing people focused on helping middle market businesses solve their risk management issues”. The more detail you can offer, the more real it will feel and the easier it will be to get people on board to help you.
With a solid idea of where you are headed in the next decade you can now actually begin to plan the “how” part of getting there. Zoom in on the next three years. Look at where you are today, the capabilities you and your team have, the financial capability to invest in growth you have now and what you can reasonably expect to dedicate to business growth. Then, set concrete goals for the next three years.
Here, you can be specific about markets to pursue, capabilities you need to develop, investments you need to make and results you expect. Most three-year targets are not hit with precision by their authors. But you should be trying to meet at least 60 to 80%.
Build your plan
With the visioning and longer-term thinking out of the way, it is now time to draft an annual plan. This will be highly specific. It will include “what” you are going to do. It will also describe “how” you’re going to do it. You should focus on hitting your financial and operating targets and expect at least 80% achievement at the end of 12 months though 100% or more is the goal.
Keep in mind a great year doesn’t happen just because you wrote a plan and calculated a budget. Each quarter, you now need to conduct highly specific planning to get you the results that drive you to reaching your one-year objectives. Plan to set time aside every 90 days to hold yourself and your team accountable and plan the next quarter’s activities and anticipated results.
Three months is still a long time. And if you don’t watch out it will slip by and you’ll have forgotten to take the actions you planned and the quarter will be less than you had hoped. So, set time aside every week to review your progress. Make sure you’re hitting the interim milestones you’ve set. If you are off track, correct your course or double down on your efforts.
Take it slow and steady
As a leader who followed this methodology looking back over the last 25 years at my own business ventures, my teams and I have taken many paths I could never have envisioned from the beginning.
That said, we’ve ended up where we set out to go. And we’ve achieved the big hairy audacious goals we set for ourselves. We were patient but disciplined. We only pursued opportunities that were consistent with our vision. And we built success slowly but surely.
Tony Caldwell is an author, speaker and mentor who has helped independent agents create more than 250 independent insurance agencies. Learn more by visiting www.tonycaldwell.net or contacting him at tonyc@oneagentsalliance.net.
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