I’ve talked a lot about purpose and about planning on my blog, book, and podcast as I seek to serve home service professionals and really all leaders with a driven mind like myself.
But what is exactly is the definition of purpose in business, and how does the purpose of YOUR specific plan make a difference.
As an operator, as a leader, as an influencing individual to your team in home service, it can be a challenge, and there’s all kinds of different information and different directions and different trades and lines that you can follow.
So I wanted to talk to you about the purpose of your plan.
Let’s level up our game, my friends, and be more impactful leaders.
My Connection And Dedication To Your Business
I love the opportunity to connect and share some things that I learned from clients that I see in the trades I’ve worked in my whole life.
Yeah, I’ve traveled with amazing speakers.
I’ve done huge keynotes with large audiences, and I’ve written general books.
But now I’m back to where I’ve started. All of the work that I do is for the home service trades.
And I’m very grateful for that.
I’ve got a book coming out later this year about leadership for home service professionals.
We’ve got seven principles that will help unlock your greatest self and, quite honestly, kind of flies in the face of some of the “success” we’re taught.
What I’m asking you to do is go back into yourself and realize what you truly want your business to look like, what you truly want your leadership role to look like, what you want your position to do, how you want it to fulfill, why it exists, and what you’re doing with it.
As we talk about the purpose of your plan, I want you to kind of bold that and capitalize that it’s your plan.
It’s not somebody else’s; it’s not some random, best practice group.
And it’s not your coach at Blue Collar.
The plan is about you.
It’s about your family.
It’s about your team.
The plan is about what you want.
And we start with a plan.
Today I really want to break down some of the psychology of why and what the purpose is behind a plan.
You’ll never find a business coach or best-practice group that doesn’t ask you what your plan is.
It’s a part of leadership.
I’m not here to give you your plan or critique your plan today.
I’m a psychology guy.
And I spend most of my time now studying the human mind and human behavior.
I work with the subconscious mind, and as I’ve reprogrammed mine and many clients, I do my high-level work now are around reprogramming subconscious habits and behaviors and different things.
Ask Yourself The Big Questions
How do you think about a plan?
What does that word mean to you?
Well, we have different ways that we think.
Some people (like me) write down huge plans with broad strokes without the details of what the thing will look like in the process.
Some write down plans like they’re set in stone.
And there won’t be any shifts or any changes or any directions, different things like that.
I’ve written five-year plans that get blown away.
I wrote one back in 2000 about what my plumbing heating company would look like.
I said in five years I would also be a heating company.
And I would serve all of Western Colorado.
But during that time, I had a non-compete with another member of a best-practice group that existed in a market 60 miles away from me.
But I went ahead and wrote the plan and just kind of decided to see what happened and what took place.
What was fascinating is 18 months after I wrote the plan, I bought that company that had the non-compete.
So I bought that company as well as my non-compete, and then I ended up serving it.
And what was funny is I didn’t get that plan back out.
There was some subconscious work going on in my mind that was happening in the background.
I was able to do it without a detailed plan because it was my plan.
That one of the gifts of a good plan is that you kind of play some things in your subconscious programming.
Let Your Purpose And Goal Be Your Guiding Light
I want you to think about a plan as simply a guiding arrow or a guiding light if you will.
And so, why does a plan exist?
So I have a map. So I know where I’m going.
All of these are normal.
Here’s what I’m going to tell you.
A plan exists so you can get started.
That’s what it’s all about.
And so, there’s a difference between implementing ideas and plans.
In previous articles, I’ve talked about my mentor, Keith Cunningham, that taught me about implementing plans, not ideas.
Cause I used to be a shotgun approach in the world in business.
A couple of those little pellets would hit my target periodically, but it was near as good as having a laser on a high-powered rifle from a thousand feet and being able to know exactly what I wanted to do before I launched.
Now, as soon as I launch, I might realize there’s a different target over here that I want to go to, but it’s going to be well thought out.
If I implement plans and not ideas.
You know, I have a reason that I got started.
I didn’t get started because of an idea; I got started because I have a plan of where I’m going to go.
It’s going to change as we go because you will run into problems.
Check out another article where I talk about how to deal with these problems.
Problems Aren’t Problems For Plans
The fact is the problem is not the problem.
The problem is when you let that problem stop you. The problem’s about slowing down. It’s about not taking action.
It’s about hesitation.
Sometimes it’s okay to regroup.
We need to catch our breath.
I have what I call recharge days where I don’t do business.
I do the things that really give me energy and feed me.
And a lot of what I do in business does give me energy.
So on my hybrid days, I’m doing business, and I’m doing personal recharge things.
I might go for a hike, and I might be in the studio recording podcasts for you.
But I’m sitting here thinking sometimes I need to take a step back and recharge, but most of the time, I’m going forward.
Plans Need Reflection; A Lot Of It
And I want you to think about that plan.
The only thing that really holds you back is when you take that failure to act.
Let’s take this example:
I’m going to create a market-leading company serving all of Western Colorado, this and that.
I bought that company, but then I ended up fast-forwarded 18 months.
I closed that office.
It was a different shift of mindset, clientele, team members, and recruiting.
And so, we ended up still serving all of Western Colorado, but we did it from one location rather than two.
One of the interesting things is, I had clients in the cities I’d already launched Blue Collar by that point.
And I got clients that would drive for an hour just to get across town.
Many of you operate in markets like that.
That didn’t make sense for me to have people driving all over the place, so the plan changed. But it was still my plan.
The plan got me started the plan, got me going.
And that’s really what I want you to do today.
Really challenge and think about the plans and how they exist to get you going.
Let Your Plan Open The Way Forward
Because once you get going, you’ve opened up a way forward.
Now we kind of shift, and we look and deal with challenges.
But ultimately, you’re going to get to where you want to go.
You’re just going to make some shifts in different things.
Imagine you’re on an airplane.
I make the flight from Phoenix to Florida to go see some of our Florida team quite a bit.
I noticed something on my flights once: the plane doesn’t travel in a straight line.
It goes back and forth, east and west, off the track as it goes to follow the air streams and such.
But ultimately, it gets to where it belongs.
It has a plan for that plane, and it sticks with it.
The same is true for you.
Sometimes your destination might change.
I might say I’m going to these coasts, and I’m going to go and see my team in Florida.
And then all of a sudden, it’s like, hang on, wait, there’s a hurricane coming.
There’s a big shift going on.
Well, my plan just changed a little bit.
I’m going to go ahead and make a shift in my plan, whatever that is, and the same is true with you and your life and your business and your finance and your relationships.
That’s what it’s ultimately about.
And so, really massive achievement comes when you take full responsibility for your actions. When you start following through as a responsibility, you win the game.
Making YOUR Plan: Defining Purpose For Your Business
I don’t know about you, but I used to have a hard time writing a plan because I was afraid of writing something down and then failing.
At the time of this writing, I’m working on a 25-year plan for my team at Blue Collar.
I rolled out a ten-year plan at last year’s annual meeting, and now we’re growing so fast.
We’ve added so much team.
I have another level of clarity for where I want this business in this incredible team to go and how we can help you more and more in the marketplace.
And I don’t have any intention of ever selling this business.
I want to grow and continue.
In 25 years, I’m only going to be 75 years old.
I’ll be a pup; I’m just getting started, right?
I know as I get that plan going, we’ll continue to evolve.
We’ll adjust; we’ll learn.
And we’ll shift.
That’s what it’s ultimately all about.
So what about you?
There’s a lot of noise in the market.
There’s a lot of fear in the market.
And there’s a lot of different perspectives, right?
But you have to operate that way at the end of the day.
Your business, your role as a leader, regardless of whether you own stock or not, you own your position, make a difference, and your plan marks your path.
When you own your position, that means you take ultimate responsibility for everything that you do and don’t do as a leader in the home service space.
Taking that responsibility is to define your purpose.
Spend the time defining purpose and building yours in your plan. Then, share it and adapt as you go.
Now go and make it a better-than-fantastic day!