Post IX of the [ALIGNED] series: a blog series to help entrepreneurs create an aligned company and an aligned life.

"Have a vision. It is the ability to see the invisible. If you can see the invisible, you can achieve the impossible.” - Shiv Kera

By Mike Brcic,
Chief Explorer, Wayfinders

This is post 9 of the [ALIGNED] series, with tips, tools and wisdom to help you build an Aligned Company (resilient, self-managing, and purpose-driven) and Aligned Life (lived in line with your values, purpose and ideals).

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Get Vivid: Create Your Company Vision

<< PREVIOUS: A New North Star: Profit Vs. Revenue

During the spring of 2017, as I was pondering the future and the way forward for my struggling company, I reflected on why I'd started it in the first place.

I thought back to spring of 1996, when I’d started the company* in a little ski town in the British Columbia Rockies called Fernie.

(*I sold this company in Feb. of 2019)

I’d moved to Fernie the previous fall, after packing up my Volvo station wagon the day after my last university exam and driving west to the mountains, like so many young people before me.

I spent the summer on a typical Canadian rite of passage, planting thousands of trees into the scarred landscapes of British Columbia. Although the work was gruelling, I loved the camaraderie with my fellow tree planters and fell in love with the mountainous landscapes of BC.

After coming home to Toronto for a few weeks in September of 1995, I pointed my Volvo back westward, couch surfing and bumming around in Banff for a few weeks before eventually settling in Fernie. Within a day I had scored a place to live (in a closet-sized room, but it was a roof over my head) and a job (lift operator at the local ski resort).

I didn’t take well to working for others and was fired from the lift operator job. I soon landed a job as day shift bartender at a rough-and-tumble miner’s bar facing the railroad tracks.

The scene inside that bar was something out of a Bukowski novel: the down-and-outers of small-town BC lining up at 11am waiting for me to open the bar; men who stared blankly at the walls, raising a tired hand only to indicate to me it was time for another; couples whose intimacy was more closely tied to a glass than each other.

It was not an inspiring place to work and my ennui showed; within 2 months I was fired from that job as well. A short stint in - and quick exit from - the world of dishwashing left me wandering a trail by the Elk River that following spring with a good friend.

Despondent after failing at my 3rd job in the span of less than 6 months, I had no idea what my next ‘career’ move would be. I’d left Toronto because I didn’t want to become an economist (my field of study in university) and wanted to defer ‘real life’ for a year by being a ski bum, but now I seemed to be failing at ski bum life.

“You love mountain biking,” my wise friend noted.

“There are tons of trails around here, and more and more tourists every year. Why don’t you take people out on the trails and charge them to do it?”

This innocuous statement set in motion events that were to consume 22 years of my working life. Within a week I’d convinced another friend to join me as my business partner, and within 2 weeks we’d secured our first $10,000 in startup financing.

Our first 2 years were extremely lean: our first summer saw only one paying customer, only a handful in our 2nd year. Our breakthrough came in year 3, when we launched overnight mountain bike trips into the backcountry surrounding Fernie.

As I sat in my small office in downtown Toronto in the spring of 2017, 20+ years removed from that fateful walk along the Elk River, my thoughts drifted back to those early years.

Despite our lean start to the world of entrepreneurship. those were exciting, happy years. Our first customer must have thought I was high, or at least somewhat bizarre: I had a big, strange grin on my face the entire day. I simply couldn’t believe someone was paying me to ride my mountain bike in the Rocky Mountains on a beautiful summer day.

That customer eventually led to more customers, and by year 5 we were doing a steady business in weeklong trips, and getting media attention and accolades. My partner left around then to become a chiropractor and all of the work of the business fell onto my shoulders; I loved it.

I was the company’s lead guide, head chef, shuttle driver, marketing department, CFO, CEO, bookkeeper and dishwasher and the summer months were full of panicked trips to the grocery store to buy last-minute supplies, mad rushes to Calgary airport to pick up customers, and scrambles to hire assistant guides the night before trips started.

But they were also full of incredible moments of beauty: solo forays into the deep wilderness in search of new routes; standing above the clouds on top of Cox Hill in the front ranges of the Rockies, mountains poking above the blanket of cloud; the thrill of seeing large wildlife up close.

By year 7 I was doing back-to-back, often full, trips from mid-June to mid-September and the company’s reputation was growing. I was learning entrepreneurship on the fly, making it up as I went, and making lots of mistakes, but it didn’t matter; I was loving every minute.

I was deeply passionate about mountain biking - there’s something truly magical about flying through the woods on a mountain bike, completely focused on the moment and the 10 feet of trail in front of you, with a group of people partaking in a shared, communal experience of awe and joy.

In 2006, on a whim and a hunch, I launched an international expansion by launching trips outside of Canada: first to Peru, then Chile, Slovenia, Croatia, Guatemala, Nepal, and more. The hunch paid off as we staked out new territory for the mountain bike industry and garnered many firsts and many awards. I was consumed by a passion for exploring the world on a mountain bike.

The excitement of that growth and globetrotting eventually wore off. The awe and joy that had fuelled the company and me during those years and during our years of expansion had largely vanished, replaced by spreadsheets, BHAGs, and shareholder reports.

Where had our 'why' gone?

Our focus on hitting growth targets had taken us away from the heart of what Sacred Rides was about: spreading the joy of mountain biking and exploring the world with others.

We needed to get back to our basics, and we needed a vision for the future beyond sales targets. We needed inspiration.

I turned, as I had several times before, to my friend Cameron Herold’s book Double Double. Cameron, who has now become a good friend, is a true business genius: he was the COO (Chief Operating Officer) that took 1-800-GOT-JUNK from $2M to $106M in sales within 6 years and the author of several business books (the best of which, in my opinion, is the aforementioned Double Double).

In the book, Herold introduces the concept of a Vivid Vision: a process for outlining one’s vision for the future of the company (he’s since written an entire book on the Vivid Vision concept – I highly recommend it).

I reread the chapter on Vivid Vision and sat down with pen and paper to write my Vivid Vision for Sacred Rides. The gist of the Vivid Vision premise is fairly simple: outline, in as much vivid detail as possible, what you want your company to look like 3 years from now.

I needed to re-inspire both myself and my staff; they had gotten used to my frequent flights of fancy and diversions, veering in so many different directions. It was time to set a clear vision for the company and keep myself - and them - to it.

It’s called a Vivid Vision because it’s meant to paint a vivid visual image of what the company looks like; that visual engages the imagination of your employees, your customers, your shareholders and stakeholders, and others.

It should include a picture of:

• Your important numbers (e.g. profit, customer numbers, etc.)

• Your staff situation

• Your culture

• Your reputation

• Your marketing and sales

• Your operations

• Your customer service

• Your media attention

• Anything else that’s important to you

The more vivid and detailed you can get, the more you will inspire yourself, your staff and your customers. Your staff will get motivated by various aspects of the vision, and they will see in that vision their best opportunities to make use of their gifts in order to help achieve that vision (and if they are wholly uninspired by your vision, then you should get rid of them immediately - they will weigh your company down).

To read Sacred Rides’ Vivid Vision from July 2016, click here.

Your Vivid Vision should be shared widely: with your staff, your shareholders, your customers, your suppliers, and your other stakeholders. Your vision - if written honestly and engagingly - will inspire them to help you achieve it.

Your vision will light the spark of imagination in others and they will conspire to help you achieve your dreams.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE VIVID VISION CHECKLIST

<< PREVIOUS: A New North Star, Profit Vs. Revenue
>> NEXT: Guiding Principles: A Lighthouse In The Fog

Subscribe now to get notified when new articles are posted, and get free access to my free Vivid Vision checklist to help you draft your own Vivid Vision:

PRESCRIPTION: VIVID VISION

Set aside some solo, uninterrupted time for writing a 1st draft of your Vivid Vision; I recommend at least 3 hours, with no phone and no emails and no distractions. If you can do it in a place that inspires you, such as a quiet place in the woods or the deck of your cottage, all the better.

Again, it should include:

• Your important numbers (e.g. profit, customer numbers, etc.)

• Your staff situation

• Your culture

• Your reputation 

• Your marketing and sales

• Your operations

• Your customer service

• Your media attention

• Anything else that’s important to you

Feel free to use Sacred Rides’ Vivid Vision as a template. Download it here.

As you’re writing your Vivid Vision, try to connect with what feels deeply resonant and authentic to you.

Remember ego, a few articles ago?

Ego can creep in to your Vivid Vision and start doing the writing for you. As you write down various aspects of your Vivid Vision, ask yourself why each aspect of it is important to you, and be honest with yourself.

If you envision a large staff team, is it because you love working with people and you love bringing out their best? Or is it because you’re lonely and hungry for attention? If it’s the latter then perhaps spending years of your life to build a big team isn’t really the best way to address that emotional need.

Once you’ve written your 1st draft, I recommend you leave it for a couple of days, then come back to it.

Reread it, and pay attention to what resonates and feels authentic and what doesn’t. Edit as needed, and hopefully by the time you’re finished, you’re left with something that inspires you and feels authentic.

Once you’ve completed your final draft, share it with your team in whichever way works for you and your company: over lunch, during a team meeting, over a Slack channel if you work remotely.

Ask your staff for their thoughts; ask them what aspects of it inspire them; ask them where they feel they can make their best contribution toward seeing that Vivid Vision come true.

Refer to your Vivid Vision often. I recommend you reread it at least once a week (put it in your calendar as a recurring event), and keep bringing it up with your team.

When they’re planning projects, remind them that their projects should move the company closer to the Vivid Vision you’ve outlined.

When they’re working on tasks and projects that seem to have no connection to the Vivid Vision, challenge them and ask them why they are working on those particular tasks.

Your Vivid Vision is the map that will get you to your promised land.

WHAT’S NEXT?

• Read the next post in the [ALIGNED] series, Guiding Principles: A Lighthouse In The Fog

• Subscribe to the Wayfinding mailing list to get notified when it’s released

• Check out the Table of Contents for previous posts in the series you may have missed.

• Leave a comment below - I love your feedback!