The Entrepreneur's Path: To the Promised Land

It all fits together.

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Back in October of last year, we started a journey with a declaration: “I’m going to start a business.” That declaration springs from the core mentality of an entrepreneur: We have the ability to create ourselves.

From there, we continued forward to sketch out the challenge and the hope of creating ourselves through starting a business: An entrepreneur spends the early part of their career being desperately underpaid, so that if they get it right, they can spend the rest of their career being wildly overpaid.

In that statement is the hinge on which this home improvement entrepreneur thing swings: If you get it right. How are we going to ‘Get it right’? We’re home improvement, home repair, home service contractors – let’s treat it like something we know: Let’s look at our business like a Jobsite. First, we looked at the problem (where you are), then envisioned the solution (what you want), and finally we made a plan to get it done (how to get there).

After taking an Honest Self-Assessment, setting Clear Goals to pursue with Burning Desire, and drawing up a Plan to reach those goals, we set ourselves to work building our business: One Step at a Time.

To take on this task we followed the journey of a lead, the lifeblood of our company: our Great Brand empowers our Marketing, which generates leads that we convert into Appointments, our Salespeople turn those appointments into jobs sold, which Production then installs, and then – before we ride off into the sunset – we seek to turn that Satisfied Customer into a Lifetime Customer. Lastly, we touched on the numbers and how we should proceed with eyes open regarding our finances, so that we don’t crash the car that is our business.

With each step along a lead’s journey through our business, we made recommendations on how to think about and improve each function of your business, at a foundational level. Why? Because every step of a lead’s journey through our business is like a handoff in a relay race. The better we get at those handoffs, the more successful our business becomes and the closer we come to fulfilling our goals. Our eyes are on the prize.

That’s your job. The Leader’s job. You build the team that runs the race. You hire, train and equip your people to run, passing off the baton with a purpose: to win. You see the big picture and where this whole thing is going. You see the trees but you don’t miss the forest. You provide and sustain the vision for your business, so that you and your people can reach the Promised Land.

Just how important is it that the leader have the right kind of vision?

Let’s imagine another Jobsite:

A man sees workers on the jobsite. He asks the first, “What are you doing?”