Painted Picture: a 3-year vision of the future

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    September 21, 2008

Posted in   Entreprneur's Organization, Painted Picture   |   Comments

I had never heard of a Painted Picture until earlier this year while attending the Entrepreneur's Organization / MIT Masters in Entrepreneurship Program.

One of my favorite speakers at this years program (my second year) was Cameron Herold, founder of Backpocket COO. Cameron is the former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, a high growth company in the fragmented, unsexy junk removal business. With the help of Cameron's leadership, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? grew sales from $2 million to $105 million in six years. Not only did the franchise company expand rapidly, but it became known as a leading employer in Canada by building a world class culture (if 1-800-GOT-JUNK? can turn a junk removal business into a cool, hip company, nobody can have the excuse that their business / industry doesn't allow for "cool"). Cameron spent four days with us at the EO / MIT program, and I had lots of opportunities to pick his brain outside of the normal class presentations.

One idea I picked up from Cameron and 1-800-GOT-JUNK? was the Painted Picture. The Painted Picture is designed to be a three year dream plan for my company and the future state of our business. This plan aims to discuss the WHAT, not the HOW. Our strategic plan is written after painting the picture of the future, and the strategic plan defines the HOW aspects of the plan. Cameron suggests leaning into the future and dreaming about what the business could be, and what it should be. The three year time frame is designed to be far enough in the future to be able to dream big, while being not so far away that the plan seems unachievable (not a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, or BHAG, per Jim Collins).

It is the entrepreneur's job to dream a vision for the company, and put this down on paper as the Painted Picture. However, it is not the job of the entrepreneur to make it come true - this is the job of everyone within the company. It takes more than one person with a dream for the company to turn that dream into a reality. Cameron encourages the sharing of the Painted Picture with everyone. Obviously the company's employees need to understand and buy in to the 3-year vision for the company in order to take actions to move the company forward toward its goals. He also suggests posting the plan publicly, and sharing it with customers, clients, and prospective employees. Because the Painted Picture doesn't share the HOW aspects of the business, there is little that can be stolen from the plan even if it got into the hands of one of our competitors.

Brian Scudamore, founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? painted his first company picture in 1998 at a time when sales were flat at $1.5 million and he was trying to figure out how to grow his business. In his Painted Picture, Brian outlined his 3-year goals for the company, and shared his vision for the company. The goals outlined were aggressive, but not unachievable. The document focused not only on goals, but also what the company would look like, act like, and feel like at that future point in time.

Later this month, Business Financial Publishing will reveal our Painted Picture for 2011. After sharing this dream with our employees next week, I'll post my 3-year vision for our company to our company's web site and this blog.

Cameron will be speaking to the Entrepreneur's Organization Washington DC chapter this week, and I'm sure I'll leave with lots of great new ideas to help grow our company and build a world class organization in the coming years.

More on the Painted Picture:

• 1-800-GOT-JUNK? 2008 Painted Picture
• Planning a Vivid Future: Brian Scudamore's Key Move
• BackPocket COO 2010 Painted Picture

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