Visioning

A little exercise to guide big decisions.

I once made a big hire without a job description. Instead, I sent her the vision narrative I wrote for groundsweller circa next winter. I told her I was looking for the marketing manager referenced in the story (which I wrote in 2021 about the future):

It’s December of 2022, and I’m finalizing vacation plans for our January trip. I surprise my team each year with a quick getaway. I tell them what to pack, but they don’t know where we are going until we get to the airport. 

We have margin in both our finances and our schedule to take a trip like this, and we really like spending time with each other. To be honest, I think about this trip when hiring. “Would I enjoy dinner on a beach with this person?” I look forward to this every year. My husband joins me on the tailend, and we celebrate a year of hard yet rewarding work. 

We are serving seven clients on retainer now, offering strategy, activations, and engagement. We combine the best of partnerships, content, PR, and ad support (all my favorite aspects of marketing). Our work is known for being a little quirky and highly effective with deep engagement. And our clients are incredible. I use the filter, “I’d do this work for free” when agreeing to a project, and we feel good about both the marketing output and the relational equity we’ve created. Our clients depend on us, and we feel valuable. 

My team is the main reason I am so content right now; they are lean and gritty, and they can get.stuff.done. Our Marketing Manager serves as my rock and “homebase”, providing both our clients and myself with dependable support. Because of her high initiative, problem solving, and follow-through, I never worry about the state of the business and our accounts; I know they are being shepherded well. Our Marketing Strategist is known for hacking her way into creative new solutions and the strategic plan to pull them off. And the best part is that both of these team members are just fun to be with. Our group text is full of inside jokes and even prayers for personal situations. We are for each other. 

We have a bullpen of incredible strategists (BT! Kevin! Pamela! Bethany!) with a diverse range of experience and perspectives. We’ve also streamlined our roster of “extensions”: adjacent businesses like Laura’s design or Kait’s social media that we can refer out.

I’m spending my time where I am most valuable: in sales and leadership. I bring on and maintain clients, I offer high-level strategy, and I lead the team. I write the weekly email, which summarizes and organizes what we are learning. I’m also available to put out fires, but because we are so high-touch, we are usually able to smother those before they even fully ignite. 

Our team works efficiently and effectively so that we can do good work, get paid well, and have a thriving life outside of work. We are present with our kiddos, and we each have a hobby or two that takes up a chunk of the work day. (I’m getting more and more involved in community and economic development in Norcross, and we spend our weekends at the South End project I helped bring to life.)

When I shut down email and social media on Friday afternoons to head into a weekend, I’m thrilled to find that I don’t feel anxiety about work; in fact, the only time I even think about it is when I get excited about something waiting for me on Monday. Instead of anxiety or stress or pressure, the feeling I realize I experience most often is gratitude, and my soul feels at peace.

She was an unbelievable addition to our team, and it was such a smooth and quick transition, as she knew exactly what I wanted in the business and her role within.

groundsweller clients have similarly used this little exercise to make big decisions. In writing his company vision, Matt realized he needed to doubledown on finding the right talent, and he also shifted his offerings.

Steven from King of Pops completely rethought his corporate structure, and he used his vision to recruit franchisees. He also committed to processes and structure that he knew he would need to be successful, as mentioned in this paragraph from his vision:

The “business stuff” went even better than expected. We had 40 of our 46 partners average over 250 pops per week by the second half of the peak season. The HubSpot lead system took several weeks to get used to, but it helped us stay organized and focus our marketing efforts to make sure our pipeline was consistently nice and full. On the proactive side we saw success in several areas, in particular a bounceback wedding season after so many were cancelled in 2020, farmer’s markets, recurring school/sports events and by late Summer … EVENTS! (finally).

And Ashley and her team discovered shared goals that helped develop their new city launch plan. (Check out this epic line from her Head of Market’s vision):

I so love the predictability of it all. We love to imagine how individual we are, how unbound by destiny or duty, and yet here we are with a model that not only tells us how large a market will grow and how fast, but what the right acquisition cost should be for positive ROI, what our market saturation point is. It’s not a crystal ball; it’s a recipe.

The idea for visioning came from Zingerman’s, who put together this in-depth article about the practice. To get started on your own, I’d suggest choosing a future point in time (next winter? five years from now? your tenth anniversary?) and imagining where you are and what you might be feeling. Then dissect why. What led you to this point?

And once your vision is complete, share it with those who 1. need the inspiration (your team, for instance) and 2. can hold you accountable (your partner, mentor, assistant).

p.s. Personal visioning is just as powerful! I once wrote a vision for my 40th birthday and ended up using the exercise to turn down a big business opportunity and to purchase a house. Yikes!