Construction Monthly Magazine | Charlotte 2022 Build Expo Show Edition
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That is an infinite and empty<br />
treadmill leading to the same<br />
destination over and over.<br />
I am going to walk you through<br />
the four steps you need to take<br />
to navigate your business in<br />
2023 in a powerful way.<br />
The first step in building your<br />
business plan for 2023 is<br />
making time to fill out your<br />
Vision Story.<br />
If you are comparing your <strong>2022</strong> to 2020 and 2021 you may<br />
want to pause.<br />
Standing here at the early sunset hours of <strong>2022</strong> we are<br />
feeling a very real metaphor.<br />
It goes like this.<br />
During 2020 and 2021 many of our businesses were<br />
barreling down the business highway at 90 mph winding hot<br />
at 10,000 RPM’s.<br />
Today, it already feels like a massive slowdown, and it has<br />
been. Let’s not lose perspective though…instead of going<br />
from 90 mph to 0…we are now riding down the highway at a<br />
more sustainable, more comfortable pace of 70 mph, and the<br />
good news is that we are only running at 5,000 RPM’s.<br />
In other words, it is taking far less effort to go just a little bit<br />
slower and start to get some breathing room.<br />
The problem is that our human minds have grown<br />
accustomed to the speed, breathlessness, chaos, and cash<br />
flow of the past two years and we don’t know how to<br />
mentally or emotionally throttle our expectations, let alone<br />
our spending habits.<br />
New norms have emerged over the past two years; pricing<br />
volatility, material and logistics inconsistencies, marketing<br />
and sales simplicities, and probably the most noticeable<br />
internally is that your employees want more money for<br />
the same roles and while demanding more flexibility and<br />
meaning. Employees want their business life to fuel their<br />
personal lives, and not the other way around.<br />
Historically, business owners have tried to solve headaches<br />
by shooting one particular shiny bullet…sales, sales, sales.<br />
If we could just get more work then we would have more<br />
cash to pay higher fees, higher premiums, higher wages,<br />
higher demands, and higher expectations.<br />
In 2023, where vision is<br />
not written down, people<br />
will indeed scatter, and that<br />
scattering of people will further<br />
scatter your mind and thoughts into a web of frustration.<br />
Instead, follow the ancient Jewish wisdom that says, “write<br />
the vision down so that those who read it may run.”<br />
Vision is clarifying and vision is separating. When you cast<br />
vision you know who is bought in and who is not. Some will<br />
run towards your vision and some away from your vision.<br />
You will be tempted to scoot on past writing your vision<br />
down and instead make up some silly excuse in your<br />
head that either, “I don’t need this” or “oh yeah, we’ve got<br />
something like that”.<br />
We’ve made crafting your vision simple.<br />
Seven categories to begin working through, and you will<br />
likely need to make about an hour or so of time for this<br />
powerful and important exercise. Notice I said the word<br />
exercise…it’s work and it’s healthy.<br />
1. Term/Time<br />
2. Family/Freedom<br />
3. Financial<br />
4. Product/Service<br />
5. Team<br />
6. Client<br />
7. Culture<br />
The second necessary tool in your 2023 business planning<br />
toolkit is the sobering Delegation Roadmap.<br />
Andrew Carnegie said, “No person will make a great business<br />
who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.”<br />
John Maxwell said, “If you want to do a few small things<br />
right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and<br />
make a big impact, learn to delegate.”<br />
Discovering delegation will make time for what matters most<br />
in three ways:<br />
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