This past December, we were having our 2-day offsite EOS meeting. During that meeting we do an exercise called “The One Thing.” During this exercise, we all sit in a circle and we go around and tell each other one thing we admire about that person and one thing we wish they would do better.
Let me take a moment to go back a couple of months to set the stage for this. We have big goals at Shop Marketing Pros. I used to put boundaries on my goals because I had this false belief that large companies can’t provide a great customer experience. Then one day it hit me that Disney does it every day for 159,000 visitors across their parks. But that’s another story.
I’d been looking for ways to drive growth in the business, and I found someone who teaches an outbound sales model that changes the way a business sells but also how they handle their ongoing customer success. It meant that one of the positions in our company would be sunsetted. That position would still exist for the clients who were already working with us in that capacity but no new clients would work with that position.
This left the people in that position wondering about the security of their jobs. Despite the fact that I thought I had made it clear to the team that no one’s job was at risk, they were still left with some questions that led to uneasiness within our team.
Getting back to our 2-day annual and The One Thing. When it was my leadership team’s turn to give me feedback about what they admire and what they wish I would change, there were a few things presented and the one that stuck with me was this. I was told, “The one thing I wish you would do better is to share your vision for the company throughout ALL levels of the organization.”
The leadership team understood my vision. They were privy to conversations at the highest level and were involved with vetting this coach we had hired. We’d talked in detail about how it was going to impact the company, our team, and our clients. The entire leadership team could see the vision with extreme clarity. But the people actually doing the work could not. They got a 10,000 foot view of the vision. More on that later.
A Deep Dive Into Creating A Shared Vision
In EOS, everything is about gaining clarity and then taking action in a calculated way, and being held accountable throughout the process. So when we do The One Thing, we make a commitment to become better and it usually results in a “Rock” for the upcoming quarter. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of rocks, watch this video.
One of my rocks for Q1 2025 was now to do a deep-dive into how to create a shared vision. This rock was made measurable by the end result being me writing a blog and a podcast on creating shared vision. That blog is what you are reading now.
As I set out on this deep-dive, I thought I would find tons of books, articles, videos, and podcasts on the topic. What I found is that this topic is almost completely owned by the modern Christian church, and they use the term “vision casting” to describe this idea of creating a shared vision. But outside of the church, there is very little discussion about the topic.
I found a handful of books on Amazon but most had very few reviews and they were by authors I’ve never heard of. That’s not to say they aren’t great books, I just don’t have time to be the guinea pig. I settled on two books.
I read both of these books and both were good books. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I was left a bit underwhelmed by both. As I reflect, I don’t think there was anything wrong with either book, but I was expecting there to be a big revelation when in fact, creating a shared vision just isn’t rocket science.
I did take away a lot from this deep-dive. It’s just that it’s all simple stuff – and my brain wanted to make this a complex topic that would make me feel like a genius for figuring it out. I like to overcomplicate things, but for the smart ones among us who appreciate simplicity, creating a shared vision is a very simple thing to do. Note that I didn’t say it’s easy. I said it’s simple. And those are two very different things.
The Difference Between Vision, Mission, and Values - and My Apathy About Them All
In the business world when talking about vision, it’s often lumped in with mission and core values. If you’ve ever taken part in establishing mission, vision, and values for a business then you know just how misunderstood these things are. The most simple way I know to explain the difference between the three is this.
- Vision is where you as an organization are going.
- Mission is how you are going to get there.
- Values are what your beliefs and ethics look like along the way.
So a company may have a vision of being a $100M company with 10 offices across the U.S., 1000 employees, and serving 10,000 clients – all while being the best at what they do in their industry.
Their mission may be “To provide the highest quality marketing services to auto repair shops throughout the U.S. and Canada.”
And their values may be Integrity, Excellence, and Respect.
BTW, these are not my company’s vision, mission, or values. Sometimes it makes the most sense to drop words in that help my articles perform from an SEO standpoint, so why not make the example marketing for auto repair shops? (Oops, I did it again, LOL.)
So where this fictional company is going is to the place of being a $100M company with 1000 employees, 10 offices, and 10,000 clients. How they are going to get there is by providing the highest quality marketing services for auto repair shops throughout the U.S. and Canada. And along the way they are going to do it with integrity, excellence, and respect.
Hopefully that helps clear up the confusion between mission, vision, and values.
I also want to say this. I always had strong apathy for vision, mission, and values. I thought these were things that you wasted time on creating to put on a page on your website and hand them on the wall in your waiting room, and then never look at them again. It wasn’t until we started doing EOS that I saw the value in these things, and that’s because we took the time to figure out the heart of each of these components and then we started using them as a litmus test in everything we are doing in our business.
When making a decision about something in your business, being able to test that decision against your vision, mission, and values often leads to a very fast answer.
For instance, let’s say you’re looking at making a big hire. You can ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this person going to help us get to where we are wanting to go (vision)?
- Is this person key to how we are going to get there (mission)?
- Does this person have high integrity, do they do things with excellence, and are they respectful to everyone they come in contact with (values)?
If the answer is no to ANY of those questions, the answer is NO to hiring them. And you NEVER make an exception to this.
What Do You Want?
It’s such a simple question but most people can’t answer it.
Years ago I was in a couple of coaching groups. The first was WARRIOR which was led by Garrett J. White. The second was ManWealth which was led by Satema Gali and Nate Bailey. At the core of both of these programs was a simple question: “What do you want?”
If you’re reading this article then you’re probably leading and growing a business. Maybe you’re running an auto repair shop. I’d bet if I asked you that question, you couldn’t answer it. If you could, it’s likely that you would give me some vague, watered down version of an answer that was centered around revenue.
There’s more to life than revenue! There’s more to life than profit! There’s more to life than money! If I were to give you $1B today with the caveat that you couldn’t spend it in your lifetime and it all went away when you died, would you want the money? We don’t work for money. We work for what you can do with money. You don’t want a million dollars. You want the freedom that comes from having a million dollars.
But besides money, and certainly more important than money, what about your health? What about relationships and family? What about your ability to give? What about your spiritual life?
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
If you don’t have a clear VISION of what you want, you will never get it. That goes for your personal life, and for your business.
Creating A Clear Vision For Your Business
If I took anything from those two books that I read, it’s that your vision needs to be extremely clear and detailed. Like way more detailed than what I was sharing with my team.
I mentioned early in this article that my team had a 10,000 foot view of my vision. You’ll hear that analogy a lot and it’s usually referenced as a 30,000 foot view. Where that comes from is the view you have out of the window of an airplane. When you’re at 30,000 feet looking down, you can tell when you’re flying over a city. You can see the numerous corn fields. But you can’t see any detail.
When looking down at a city from 30,000 feet you can see the entire city and its suburbs all in a single view. But you can’t see each individual building. You can’t make out an eighteen wheeler on the highway. You can’t see a person at all. You don’t even know what city you’re over unless there is a giant landmark you’re familiar with.
Then we have the 10,000 foot view. Now you can see a little more detail. You can separate one building from another. You can see the movement of cars and you can make out an eighteen wheeler parked behind a building. You might even be able to recognize a very large sign if it has a brand on it that you’re familiar with. You still can’t see people, and any detail is very limited.
When you’re creating a vision for your company you need to have a ground-level view. When you’re at ground-level you can see all of the detail you want. Not only can you see a person, you can read their t-shirt. You can smell their perfume. That’s the kind of detail you should have in your vision. That’s the kind of detail your people need!
Taking a Vision Getaway
Another takeaway from both books is that you need to get yourself out of your typical environment in order to craft your vision. You don’t do this in your office or at the shop. You don’t do this at your home. You need to get yourself into a new environment where you’ll be distraction free and hopefully inspired.
I’m big on the idea of touching your dreams, so if you have a dream of owning a cabin in the mountains or a home on the beach, go rent a cabin or a beach house for a few days and combine a vacation with crafting your vision. Putting yourself in a place where you can experience even a small taste of your dream will inspire you to think bigger – and when you’re crafting your vision, don’t be afraid to dream BIG!
I know that renting a cabin or a beach house may not be in the budget for some of you, and that shouldn’t deter you from doing this exercise. The important thing is to get yourself out of your usual environment. You can go sit at a park or a quiet coffee shop and work on this. Just try to make it somewhere you can enjoy being and get inspired.
Side note, my favorite podcast episode I’ve ever listened to is this Ed Mylett Show episode about touching your dreams. This is a remixed episode that includes segments from three different episodes and the segment I’m referring to is the middle segment. So start listening at around 52:10.
How Detailed Does Your Vision Need To Be?
A couple of sections above I asked the question “What do you want?” This question as posed by the coaching groups, was more towards what you want personally, and I encourage you to dig into everything that you want personally because the business you build needs to support your personal desires. But the reason I shared that was more about showing how people go through life trying to become better without knowing what they want. What you want is the target.
You can shoot an arrow aimlessly into the air and you WILL hit something. The problem is you may not like what you hit. Shooting the arrow aimlessly is the equivalent of running your business without a clear vision.
You can shoot that same arrow at the side of a barn and you’ll probably hit it. But targets are detailed. They have a center point with circles around it. The target isn’t just a blank piece of paper.
The details in your vision are the center point and the rings of a target. They are precise and let you know how you did when you took your shot. Think of it like this:
The paper the target is on is, “I want to own an auto repair shop.”
The outermost ring is, “My auto repair shop will have 5 bays,4 2-post lifts, an alignment rack, and 4 technicians.”
The middle ring is, “We work on European cars and exotics for affluent clients in the North Dallas area.”
The inner ring is, “Our technicians are factory trained. We stole the best of the best from the dealerships and we keep them up-to-date by sending them to the best training events, like VISION and ASTA. They are proficient in the use of the latest diagnostic equipment including multi-channel oscilloscopes, 5 gas analyzers, pressure transducers, and more. We fix what other auto repair shops cannot and we do it with precision.”
The center point is, “We hold a 22% profit margin and a $2000 ARO. I, as the owner, work 3 days per week. I travel without limits. I have zero debt, and my retirement is fully funded.”
Just about anyone can hit the paper the target is printed on. I know A LOT of auto repair shop owners who live lives I want nothing to do with. They are broke, stressed out, and unhealthy. Their vision has no detail and they think they are on target just because they hit the paper. It’s not good enough.
When you craft your vision, dig into the details – and talk about it like you have already accomplished it. Don’t state what it is going to be, state it as if it already is!
- How many bays do you have?
- What type of cars do you work on?
- What services do you offer?
- What is your revenue?
- What is your average repair order?
- What is your gross profit?
- What is your net profit?
- How many technicians do you have?
- How many service advisors do you have?
- How many support staff do you have and what positions do they fill?
- Who is your coach?
- Who does your marketing?
- What is your marketing budget?
- How many loaner cars do you have?
- What shop management software are you using?
- What CRM are you using?
- Do you rent or own your building?
- What do your uniforms look like?
- What does your waiting area smell like?
- What training events do you go to each year?
- Do you close the shop and take everyone to those training events?
- Who is your CFO?
- Who is your CPA?
- What benefits do you offer your team?
- What does your sign look like?
- What does your landscaping look like?
- How are you involved in your community?
- How are you perceived in your community?
- What charities do you donate to?
- Who are your parts vendors?
- What is your warranty?
If I sat here thinking about it I’m sure I could come up with some more questions, but this makes the point. You want to be incredibly detailed when crafting your vision.
Don’t Worry About How You’re Going To Do It
Now is not the time to worry about how you’re going to do it. The how will scare you. The how will hold you back from dreaming big. Just get it down on paper and worry about the how later. A strong vision will provide the how at a later time.
The books I read talked about some famous visions and these visions were big. Like really, REALLY BIG.
They both talked about JFK and the Space Race. Putting a man on the moon was an incredible vision. But not only were we going to put a man on the moon, we were also going to return him safely to earth, AND we were going to do it by the end of the decade! If JFK had gotten hung up on the how, he would have never presented his idea to Congress. He galvanized the nation – and the rest took care of itself.
In 2007 when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, every smartphone on the market had a physical keyboard built into it. But the iPhone was going to get rid of the physical keyboard and have a touchscreen. The majority of people said he was crazy. They said people wouldn’t like it, or it would never work. Today the iPhone is the best selling phone in the world, outselling every other phone combined – by a lot.
Again, don’t be afraid to dream big. Just make sure your vision aligns with your actual wants and your why, because otherwise you won’t have the drive to see it through.
Sharing The Vision With Your Team
This is where I messed up. I had the vision, though it wasn’t as detailed as this deep-dive has shown me it needs to be, but I hadn’t done a good job of sharing it with my team.
You can have the most well thought out vision with the most incredible detail and it will accomplish zero if you are the only one who can see it. You need to share this vision with everyone on your team. That being said, there is an order to how you should share your vision.
Selling Down The Ladder
In the book The Vision Driven Leader, Michael Hyatt refers to this as “selling down the ladder.” This will be different for various auto repair shops dependent on the hierarchy of their accountability chart. Some shops have no leadership team. For some, especially those family businesses, the leadership team is the owner and their spouse. Some mid-sized, most larger shops, and all MSOs will have a leadership team.
Basically you start with the highest levels and work your way “down the ladder” when sharing your vision.
It’s important to have thick skin and to willingly take feedback. People won’t get bought into something when they feel they are the subordinates of a dictator. These people are on your team because they are great at what they do. Listen to their feedback with open ears and an open mind. You may find some gold nuggets in their words.
What’s In It For Them?
When selling your vision to your team you must show them what’s in it for them. In my case, I want to own a house in Grayton Beach one day. It’s a huge desire for me, but I can’t get my team bought into a vision because it’s going to result in me living at the beach.
What they can get behind is the opportunity to climb the ladder in the organization, the possibility of them leading teams of their own, more pay, better benefits, more time off, and bonuses. Those things all impact them personally, and my vision genuinely includes those things for every person in the organization.
Find Your MAGA
The other key to sharing your vision is to never shut up about it. Whether you like him or not, Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is one of the best examples of creating a shared vision in modern history. You can’t read it without hearing his voice say it.
When you think your team is sick and tired of hearing you talk about your vision, you’re just getting started.
In Conclusion
My leadership team asked me to do a better job of creating a shared vision with all levels of our team and that seems like the easy part. One of my Q2 rocks will be to craft this detailed vision, and then I look forward to reporting back on it.
In this quarter, I have read two books on creating a shared vision. I have watched numerous YouTube videos, and I have listened to a few podcasts. Our quarterly meeting is in 5 days as I write this, so I’ll be reporting back to my leadership team on what I have learned and I look forward to seeing how this impacts our team and our company as a whole.
I know this… I have a much higher respect for vision now after doing this deep-dive. I can see the importance but I also recognize that vision only works when it is driven hard and when it has the entire team aiming for the same target.
I hope you found this read valuable and I hope you’ll take the time to craft a strong vision for your company.
Remember, one of those questions I put in there for you to use when hammering out the details of your vision is this: what marketing company are you working with? When it comes time to see that big vision become a reality, we’d love it if you would consider Shop Marketing Pros as an option. To schedule a discovery call, click here.
Brian Walker
“Digging in and figuring out why a business’ marketing isn’t working is a lot like it was when he was elbows deep into a car that no one else could fix. When you figure it out, there’s nothing else like it.”
To get to do this for auto repair shop owners combines his passions, and he couldn’t be more excited about helping shop owners.
