I was selling Motorola 2-way communication equipment in the early ’90s to public safety, county municipalities, public school districts, manufacturers, and the U.S. Coast Guard. I had built a solid reputation, was making more money than I had dreamed, and winning sales awards year after year. My plan was working.

Then one day, I realized I was bored. I lost the thrill of the hunt. I had become an order taker. It was at this time that I realized I wasn’t building anything like my parents had. My parents were entrepreneurs who built two businesses while raising eight boys!

I decided to look for opportunities to invest in a start-up. I began to “hope” that I could build a business as my parents had. Hope became the first step in laying the foundation for my entrepreneurial journey.

After exiting my second business, I have devoted the past seven years to helping entrepreneurs get what they want from their business. I’ve worked with more than 100 companies, delivered more than 600 sessions, and dedicated more than 4,500 hours to strategy and planning.

Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

What I’ve witnessed working with these companies is that they all have a story rooted in hope. A great grandfather immigrated from Germany with a recipe for beer in his head and hoped to build a brewery. A grandfather who was a mechanic started to sell Buicks out of his garage and hoped to build a dealership. A mother who is a CPA decided to build a better home-health service and hoped to deliver a better patient experience. All three of these examples are real-life, and they are all thriving and high-fiving in their respective fields.

The visionaries of all these companies had what Jim Collins calls a BHAG – Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. It is the big picture that is awe-inspiring and gets employees connected and motivated to be successful.

Strategy works best when you can lay out the long-term vision in simple language that people will rally around. This then becomes the cornerstone of the company’s business plan, getting everyone on the same page and rowing in the same direction. Hope frames the visionary’s strategy narrative and becomes the framework to build a plan upon. The tool we use at Traction in Florida is called the V/TO™ – Vision, Traction, Organizer. You can read my article titled “What’s Your Plan” to learn more about this tool (https://tractioninflorida.com/get-traction-whats-your-plan/).

Hope – “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” What are you hoping for in your business? Whatever it is, articulate your BHAG to your executive team, build your strategy using the V/TO™, then share it with everyone in your company so they can begin to execute your vision!