Do You Have a Vivid Vision for Where Your Contracting Business Will Be in 3 Years?

If your company’s future feels a little hazy, there’s a powerful tool to help clarify your goals and achieve your dreams: the Painted Picture. 

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It’s 2:15 on a random Tuesday afternoon and your sandwich sits on your desk, uneaten, as yet another project meeting runs overtime due to a snafu with a materials order. 

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Meanwhile, you watch your inbox count tick upwards with emails from customers, staff, vendors, and one that looks like an invite to a barbeque you almost certainly won’t have time to attend.

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And that’s when it happens. You escape. Or at least, your mind does. Just for a moment…

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Suddenly there’s sand… water… a sailboat. No wait, a yacht… yeah, that’s it. A yacht. And not just any yacht… YOUR yacht… You’re on the deck, sipping a beer, content in the knowledge that back home your contracting business is running like clockwork…

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But then, as quickly as the image emerges… it disappears.

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POOF. 💨

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You’re back at your desk, buried in the daily grind.

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Believe it or not, there’s tremendous power in that fleeting moment. The trick is being able to harness it, and turn your daydreams into Painted Pictures of how you want your future to look.

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This article will tell you how.

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What is a Painted Picture?

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A Painted Picture is a four or five page description of how your company will be THREE years down the road.

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The concept was hatched back in the late 90s by a collection of brilliant minds that included Brian Scudamore, the founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Their first COO, Cameron Herold, later refined it into the notion of the Vivid Vision.

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The idea is to produce a document that clearly communicates the vibe and functioning of your company across various facets, such as finances, reputation, operations, customers, team, projects – the more detail you can cram in, the better.

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Once it’s ready, it becomes the foundation your team will build the future upon, a touchstone in times of decision-making, and a guide inspiring your company’s culture.

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Why 3 years?

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When doing a Painted Picture exercise, we encourage you to stay focused on the next three years because it’s a reasonable length of time to make significant progress in growing your business.

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Five or ten years can feel too far away to get revved up about, whereas only imagining the next year doesn’t provide quite enough runway to make big things happen.

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Most contractors grossly OVERESTIMATE what they can do in a year, but majorly UNDERESTIMATE what they can accomplish in three years.

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In our experience (and it’s pretty extensive!), three years tends to be the perfect number.

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How does a Painted Picture differ from other vision statements?

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The art of defining a corporate vision has taken on many forms over the years, so it’s worth dedicating some space to exploring what a Painted Picture isn’t.

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For example, it is not a:

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☝️Mission statement – Mission statements became popular in the 70s and 80s, and were generally written by leadership teams. While they may have been descriptive, they were rarely inspiring, and virtually always existed as a single statement. But your dreams are bigger than that – you can’t squeeze your entire vision into one sentence.

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☝️One-page business plans – We’ll get into this more later, but a Painted Picture is not a plan of any length, one-page or otherwise. Annual Strategic Plans are immensely important, but they come AFTER you’ve created your Painted Picture.

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☝️Image board – When it comes to communicating with multiple stakeholders, nothing beats the written word for its ability to provide descriptive clarity. Image boards may be hugely inspiring for an individual, but an image’s meaning can become muddled in a crowd. (Hence why the world struggles to agree on what constitutes “art,” but we digress…)

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Why do I need a defined vision for my business?

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We’re gonna let you in on a little secret: most of the contractors we work with don’t have a long-term vision in place when they start with Breakthrough Academy. 🤫

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It’s a common oversight, and an understandable one. Contractors are doers, it takes effort to step back and allow yourself to live in your head for a while.

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But it’s a crucial exercise, for a myriad of reasons:

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💡It aligns your team – As a leader, you probably do have some semblance of a vision kicking around at the back of your noodle somewhere. The problem is, if you don’t share it with your team, their lack of direction will leave you feeling like you’re herding cats.

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💡It clarifies your goals – Dreams are tough to describe, they rarely make sense in raw form. Creating a Painted Picture forces you to face the blank page and really sink into specifics.

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💡It inspires purpose – Providing your team with a clear vision helps them find meaning in their work. The crew pouring concrete aren’t just pouring concrete, they’re building a life-saving medical center for the people they care about. 

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💡It puts winds at your back – When people can clearly see what you’re building, you’ll start to hear the word “yes” more often. Yes, the bank will give you financing. Yes, that customer will award you that multimillion dollar contract. Yes, that exec will leave their prestigious job to come work for you. Everybody. Wants. In.

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How much time should this take?

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A Vivid Vision exercise can take as much or as little effort as you’re willing to give it.

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If you’re slammed, and only able to bust out a page of bullet points, that’s all good. Ideally, you’re able to dedicate at least eight hours to it and, if you really want to make it shine – like the elites – get a copywriter to polish it and a graphic designer to spruce it up so you’ve got a document you’re proud to share.

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Our Contractor Quick Tool provides a guide that outlines “Good,” “Better” and “Best” options for creating your Painted Picture.

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How to create a vision for your contracting company

The process of creating a Painted Picture involves five main steps:

✴️Step 1: Dream big

No matter the current state of your business, imagine where it could be three years from this moment. What achievements would blow your mind? If they scare you a bit, you’re doing it right. Scribble down all your ideas. Yes, with a pen and paper.

Master Tip: Get out of the office and go somewhere inspiring for this. Preferably, somewhere that involves nature. 🌿

✴️Step 2: Work out your values

Figure out what you want to be known for in the world. These standards will guide your decisions over the next three years.

✴️Step 3: Find your fire

Go back to the beginning and recall what prompted you to start your company in the first place. What urged you to create something that wasn’t there before?

✴️Step 4: Flesh out your dream

Fill in the holes of your vision with more specific details. This is where you really, you know, “paint the picture…”

✴️Step 5: Share it with your world

Notice we said “your” world, not THE world. You don’t need to broadcast it or post it on your website, but you should share it with your team, customers, partners, and prospects. 

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Master Tip: In Cameron Herold’s version of SMART goals, the “S” actually stands for “share.” He SHARES more of his expert advice in this enlightening Contractor Evolution episode.

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Download the Painted Picture Quick Tool for an easy-to-follow guide on how to create a vision, as well as a sample vision for a contracting business.

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Quick Reality Check

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It’s worth pausing for a moment to talk about the balance between ambition and realism. It’s a tricky one, especially when it comes to envisioning, because you don’t want to place limits on your dreams. 

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Play it too safe and everyone will be bored. Make things too outlandish and nobody will buy in. 

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So how do you know if you’re overreaching? Or setting yourself up to fail?

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A good rule of thumb is for a vision to seem impossible to outsiders, but feel plausible to insiders. If you can nestle a goal nicely in that sweet spot, you’ll likely have something people are excited to rally around.

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I’ve Painted my Picture. Now what?

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Now to start planning! Once you’ve established a clear vision for the future, you’ll have a much easier time drawing the blueprints for what needs to happen.

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An important thing to bear in mind as you’re planning is to only tackle one year at a time. Don’t get discouraged if the first year feels like a slog. Often the most pivotal components of a vision don’t fall into place until you hit the two-and-a-half year mark.

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If you’d like to learn more about how to approach your annual plan, we have a Quick Tool that can get you up and rolling. This Contractor Evolution episode also offers some excellent insights from strategy guru, Alex Brueckmann.

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How can you tell if your Painted Picture is working?

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This might seem like a straightforward question, but don’t be fooled. It’s not just a matter of “you’ll know it when all your dreams come true.” Sticking to a vision year after year is no small feat and there will – sorry to say – be times when you question whether it’s working.

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Those occasions will likely arise in the early months, when people are still wrapping their heads around the plan. A few (okay, maybe more than a few) may question your sanity. 

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But then, a key element falls into place, or you hit a pivotal milestone, and you’ll start to feel a shift. People quit laughing and start buzzing with excitement as your picture comes into view.

The Power of the Written Word

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We mentioned earlier that it’s important you write out your vision, as opposed to making a collage of images, for instance. Part of this, as we said, is because words inherently work best for describing ideas. But that’s not the only reason…

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Writing down a vision is like communicating your desires to the universe. And it’s not unusual for the universe to respond. As you start to share your vision with others, you’ll find that they want to help you if they can, even to make just one sentence come true.

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The written word has an astounding power to motivate teams, align initiatives and create synergy. Basically, to make things happen. Often with effortless ease.

Dos & Don’ts

We’ll leave you with some final tips for creating your own Painted Picture.

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• Go through your Painted Picture regularly and highlight the parts that have happened in green.
  
  
• Write it yourself, but get a copywriter to punch it up.
  
  
• Be prepared for your vision to scare off some staff. That’s okay. Find new hires who get it.

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• Don’t worry about HOW you’re gonna accomplish your vision while you’re scribbling it down.
  
  
• Don’t use future tense! Stick to the present. (e.g., “My teams ARE…” not “My teams will be…”)
  
  
• Don’t fear your vision falling into the wrong hands. The vision isn’t the plan.

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Ready to rock the next three years? 

Download the Painted Picture Quick Tool for a template and guide to creating a vision for your life and business.

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