When I begin coaching a new recruiting firm owner client, whether a solo operator or someone scaling their business with multiple recruiters, the most overlooked step in building their business is the first stop of creating a VIVID vision for it.  What, in your “mind’s eye”, does the business look like “done?

This is the perfect time of year to ask you this question:  Do you have a vision where you are taking your firm and your life over the next few years?  OR, are you like many recruiters out there and picked up the phone after coming back from the New Year and “got back to it”, doing what you have done because that is the way you have always done it?

In business building (and getting clients) it seems to be that most recruiting firm owners just hope for the best, HOPE for a better 2014.

They simply keep doing what they’ve been doing and don’t have a strategy for creating the practice they’d be truly and deeply happy with. This is a huge mistake.

I used to write down my goals each year, but it never really worked for me. I just didn’t feel really excited about my new goals. They didn’t seem to propel me in motion and so I kind of viewed them as being useless. I never really looked at them, probably because they seemed like “shoulds” rather than “really-meaningful-wants.”

Then I came across the concept of creating 3-year visions instead of just a list of goals for the upcoming year.  This visioning wasn’t just about business goals, but also family, financial, spiritual, and relationship goals. It became a “holistic” way of looking at what you wanted in your life. All the pieces looked like they would work together, but only because you were compelled to make it all work together, which was the first time I’d done that in such depth.

The coolest thing about visioning 3 years out came to me after I started doing this regularly.  I noticed that ONE year goals were never too much of a stretch. They seemed like timid goals, goals that didn’t really get me excited. But having to create a vision of what 3 years down the line would look like allowed me to REALLY think BIG.

 
Inhibitions dropped. My creative side started going and I really took time to see, “Hey, what WOULD I want my life to look like in 3 years, if I could have time to create it?” 

 
The 3-year vision was a way for me to create something to strive for that REALLY spoke to me. Something that made my heart beat a little faster after I read it, excited to get going, and just a little bit scared of the thought of me reaching it. Now THAT would propel me into motion the way a yearly list of goals wouldn’t be able to do.   The beauty of this is that every business decision you make, you can hold back up to your vision.  Is the decision in alignment with that vision?

So, each year, around this time, I create a 3-year vision of what I want my business to look like. I write it in the present tense, as if it were 3 years later. For example, this past year I wrote mine during the past holiday break, as if it was year-end 2016 and I talked in depth about all the things that had happened since 2014. All the things I’d accomplished in my business, with my finances, my investments, my family, and myself over the “last 3 years,” which obviously hadn’t actually happened yet. 

This is such a cool exercise and it really gets the blood flowing when you read it back to yourself, now and over the year.  You see, I’ve figured out that it’s not just about goals. Yes, goals are important, but the way I look at it, it’s about focusing on what you REALLY want for your life, not the “shoulds.” It’s also about putting into effect the Law of Attraction in a big way. When you know what you want for your life, when you can imagine it with passion and feel what it feels like to have it, it’s almost guaranteed to come to you. 

Now, it’s YOUR turn. Sometime this week, create a 3-year vision dated December 31, 2016. Your 3-year vision must be one that will literally PULL you into your future, will scare you just a little bit, and make your heart beat a little faster than normal whenever you read this. 

Make your 3-year vision very specific, realistic, and a big STRETCH (that’s what’s going to move you forward quicker than you would if you didn’t have it). If you’re right brained, use bullet points for categories such as business, finances, personal, family, spiritual, fun, health, etc. If you’re left-brained, then write freely, and remember to keep it all grounded in the specific, with lots of MEASURABLES and TANGIBLES thrown in there so you can keep track of your progress over the next 3 years (that’s what I do).

Be sure to write in the present tense as if it were 3 years from now... If it doesn’t scare you just a little bit or get your mind racing, then it’s probably not enough of a stretch.

 I love this quote and it is perfectly appropriate here:

“Drive thy business or it will drive thee.”

                                 Benjamin Franklin 

By the way, I just looked back to last year’s 3-year vision and I was SHOCKED to see how many of the goals in my 3-year vision I’d already achieved in just a little over a year. This stuff really works!!