A Vision for Ellevate in 3 Years
DEAR ADVISORS,
If you’ve ever worked with us, I want to say thank you for being a part of our journey! We’re about to turn 2 years old next month, and you should be getting an invitation to my and Ellevate’s shared birthday party over Zoom in February! It’s always fun to catch up with past, present, and future clients and friends! Part of working with a small business like us, is joining our journey. What do we do? Where are we going? Over the last few months, I took time off of writing blogs so I could share this with you today. I crafted a 3yr Vivid Vision of what Ellevate Advisors is going to look like in January of 2025!
Here is a link to a video where I walk through the document. You can also find it on our website here. Creating this vision is one of the most important things I do to make Ellevate successful. If you’re interested in the process of drafting your own Vivid Vision, I’ve outlined the steps I took below:
Buy & Read Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold - To be honest, I didn’t actually come up with this idea myself. The idea and process of writing a Vivid Vision is outlined in more detail in this book. The author, Cameron, helps companies write their own vision documents through his consulting company, and wrote this short book for people like me to do a DIY version. The book includes sample documents, all of which I found very inspirational!
Leave the Office - Cameron recommends leaving the office to separate yourself from the day-to-day operations which take up so much space in our brains. Go somewhere inspiring, like somewhere outdoors! Envisioning involves unlocking a playful part of your brain and going into uncharted territory to discover all the possibilities of what your company may look like in the future. It’s much easier to experience this with tactile tools like pen and paper and activate your creativity away from your computer.
Mind Map - Imagine a world you’d love to help create and be a part of some day. The goal is to see your vision for the future of your company in as much detail as possible. Get all your ideas out on paper. I started with a list, and then grouped things as I recognized commonalities. Then I converted the groups into a Mind Map. This allowed me to start connecting the ideas in some kind of order.
Repeat steps 2 & 3 - The process of getting clear on your vision takes time. You’ll want to sleep on your thoughts and ideas and come back refreshed and revitalized with better ideas or tweaks a few times before you feel confident. I was surprised at how nervous I was to commit to this vision. I mean, I’m putting into writing and committing to the world that we’re going to achieve these things. What if we fail because I didn’t pick the right things? That’s why it’s important to take time to get super clear on what you want to accomplish, why, and what it’s going to look like and feel like before calling it done.
Rough Draft - I drafted some sections of the document and made a Loom video for the rest. I sent both to one of my ghostwriters to play with the wording to communicate more emotion and excitement for the vision!
Final Edits - It took a few passes with my ghostwriter to finalize the text. There are so many things I want to do that I actually had to cut a lot out! This is good, because the document is refined to only include the things that are truly important to us. I don’t want to overcommit my team or set unrealistic goals on how much we can accomplish in the next 3 years. After scaling back, I feel a lot more confident and excited about sharing our vision with the world!
Graphic Design - Words are boring. Pictures help tell a story without reading all the words. Since this document is going to be shared with everyone via our website, I felt it was important to design it to represent the quality of work we do, and the culture of our company. I don’t do much graphic design in our company anymore, but I designed 80% of this document myself, to ensure that it looks and feels the way it should.
Now we’re in the final stages of rolling it out! We’ve reviewed it with our team internally. That included getting feedback from employees and reviewing it together to make sure we understand and buy into the vision as a team. Today is the day we get to share it with you! We’re here to change the financial services industry, and we’re looking to connect with partners and clients who share our vision! A Vivid Vision is an excellent way to secure the future of your family and advisory firm!
Warm regards,
Brooklyn
P.S.
At Ellevate Advisors, we believe that advisors deserve to retire too. What does that look like for you, your family, and your business? Let’s figure it out together! Check out our services here, our new products page here, or get to know me on my bio here!