Creating a Painted Picture in order to reverse engineer your success is something that made intuitive sense to me.

I’ve since learned that it’s far from intuitive for everyone else.

Most people don’t think about the steps that are needed for personal or business success, and those that do can become easily frustrated with the planning process.

In 1998, when I was first exposed to visualization at an Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) meeting.  I started to think of this whole process as ‘leaning out into the future,’ which many people find helpful when they’re trying to understand this process. Eight years later, I heard another Vancouver entrepreneur, David Chalk, describe visualization as ‘leaning out into the future,’ too. Obviously, it made sense to people to think about the process this way.

A few of the other entrepreneurs from my EO Forum Group also got excited about this process and began to use visualization and the reverse engineering it in our own ways.

Once you’ve leaned out into the future and created your Painted Picture, reverse engineer to make it happen. A good example of how this works is the custom home construction process. In this specific scenario, the finished product—the home—is the equivalent of our Painted Picture.  But before creating it, home builders meet with clients and ask them to describe all kinds of areas of the home they want built or renovated. They get photos from clients and draft sketches based on these photos and other materials. After a few discussions to determine precisely what the clients want, the desired home begins to take shape visually. The plans, the builder and architect then draw up show a clear, painted picture of what the home should look like.

Using the plans as a guide, construction workers, electricians, plumbers and other team members build the client’s dream home, or ‘reverse engineer’ it. Custom home construction is the perfect example of reverse engineering in action: by starting with what the home should look like, all of the players on the team, from construction workers to the folks putting the paint on the walls, know exactly what they’re supposed to do. Everyone’s role is clear and the desired outcome is, too. It should work the same way in your organization and it can—but only if you use a Painted Picture as a guide.

An organization’s Painted Picture should serve the same purpose for you and your employees as the plans for a custom home: it should show you the way forward in reaching your ultimate objectives for your organization.

Don’t forget: Draft your Painted Picture with care, attention, and detail. This way, everyone on your team understands his or her role.

In order to make your dreams and objectives a reality, you absolutely have to work backwards. You have to first identify and articulate your goals, and then find the means to achieve those objectives. Instead of flying by the seat of your pants, reverse engineering makes it possible for entrepreneurs to align all of their daily tasks and operations around achieving overarching objectives.

Reverse Engineering is something I use all of the time now, but it wouldn’t be what it is today if I hadn’t attended an EO meeting in 1998.  At that lunch meeting, we were introduced to the concept of ‘visualization’ in sports, which is a technique athletes use. It involves imagining what success looks like in your mind, no matter what the sport, and executing based on that. Whether you’re a long distance runner imagining crossing the finish line or a basketball player who envisions taking it to the hoop, visualization helps you make your dreams a reality. This information, presented by an Olympic coach, further reinforced my belief that if you identify what you want the future to look like—whether for yourself or your organization—you’re going to make it a reality as long as you take the steps necessary to reach your goal. In business settings, calling this the ‘Painted Picture’ demonstrates to entrepreneurs that if you commit to sketching your vision for the future, you’re well-equipped to “reverse engineer” your own success.

Even with my earliest business ventures with College Pro Painters it was all about starting with the profit goal and working it all backwards to figure out what needed to be done to get there.  This is a core concept I use in all the CEO Mentoring I do today.

I was asked recently how I set such concrete revenue goals with confidence.  A few people asked me to show them how I ‘forecast’ to which I replied I don’t really forecast at all.  What I do is more like ‘reverse engineer’ a target that I feel like I can and want to hit.  Then I spend the rest of the year maniacally focused on hitting it.

So – here is how I set my Revenue Goal this year – and how I intend to hit it.  And why I know a 150% increase from 2009 will happen:

1) I first list out all the types of revenue I can generate from my business in its current state.  For me these include:

• Speaking Events
• Coaching/Mentoring Clients
• Strategic Planning
• DVD Sales

2) Then I list out all the types of new revenues I can generate from Projects I 100% know I’ll launch this year if I focus.  They include:

• CD Sales
• Online Webinar deployed learning
• Strategic Alliances/Others Selling my DVDs

3) Then I look at what I can charge for each in 2010…

• Speaking Events – I’ve decided to keep my fees the same for 2010 – $10,000 for Out of Town, $7,500 for Vancouver events, $6,000 for EO or YPO Chapters
• Coaching/Mentoring – I’ve raised my rates for all new clients to $4,200/Mth from $3,500/Mth (20% increase).  I’ve done this because I’m currently close to my self imposed cap on how many clients I’ll work with at the same time.
• Strategic Planning – This will stay the same as in 2009 – $10,000/Day
• DVD Sales – I’m going to raise my rates on these in 2010 – from the current $197 each – to either $297 ea. or $597 ea. (seems crazy & arbitrary – but I’m told there is SO much value in them for Entrepreneurial companies and their employees that I should charge more.  I’ll be doing some online testing with pricing – and doubt it will make a difference.
• CD Sales – This is a product that’s  being asked for and will sell for the same price as the DVDs (it’s the same content – just another way to learn it)
• Online Webinar – I know I’ll launch it this year – but there is so much to do here still that I’m not forecasting any revenue from it at all (it will be a lift for 2011 though)
• Strategic Alliances – This is where I plan to get the biggest lift this year – and have the plans already in place – I need 10 solid companies or people with strong lists promoting my DVDs to their lists – and I’ll share a strong % with them from all revenues.  This will scale…

4) Leading Indicators
I worked hard in 2009 to set up a solid base for 2010 so I’d have strong revenue predictability:

• I’m speaking at the EO GLC in Hong Kong & New Orleans (both will drive speaking events for 2010 & 2011).
• I have 2 strong Canadian Speakers Bureaus – and in December landed 2 very strong USA Speakers Bureaus.
• I’m speaking at the American Society Of Association Executives two conferences
• And have a couple of other strong platforms that will drive speaking for 2010 & 2011
• Speaking is predictable revenues
• At Events I also sell DVDs & CDs
• At Events I meet potential coaching/mentoring clients
• I have 10 solid companies that I am mentoring – 12 is my cap – so I will easily stay at my cap all year (and I’ve budgeted on 10 average – and in 2009 I only averaged 5 as it was a new model)
• Strategic Planning went really well last year with the companies I helped.  I’m not the cheapest but I deliver huge impact while doing these sessions.  Some clients have already said they’ll bring me back.  Some already have me booked.  And my speaking events will put me in front of hundreds of other companies who could use me as well.
• I have a few commitments from major online gurus like Yanik Silver who will be marketing my DVDs to tens of thousands of companies.

5) I know what my bandwidth issues are – and opportunities (i.e. 100% Net Margin DVDs) etc.  So I’m using those to leverage revenues.  And I also know there are brilliant people out there I can pay as a percentage of revenues (thanks Jack Daly for that lesson) and I’ll leverage that too.  Intro’s have already happened.

etc…..

From this rough plan that you’re reading – I already have tight action plans in place for how I’ll hit each one.  I know the exact dollar amount I’m targeting from each category.  I know what I need to do when.  I’ve spent two years building my FaceBook & Twitter followers who are already helping me.  So as you can see.  I’m not just picking an arbitrary goal.  I’m putting tight plans in place to hit it.  And I will.  As do the companies I coach & mentor.

Hopefully you have tight plans in place to hit your goals for 2010 too.  If you don’t, then your goals are merely dreams…

At 1-800-GOT-JUNK? we did a great job of making the Painted Picture come to life.  Brian Scudamore was the visionary who would write down what he saw ‘in the future.’  He handed me the first Painted Picture in October 2000, after spending some time sitting on his parent’s dock on Bowen Island. It was a vision of what the company would look and feel like by the end of 2003.  He didn’t know how he’d build what he saw that day from the dock, but he wrote down everything he could conjure up. He knew if he could see it, we could build it.

In later versions of Brian’s Painted Pictures, he began asking employees and Franchise Partners what they saw in the future.  Some of their ideas got baked into the Painted Pictures created for the years 2006 and 2009.  Many of their visions were placed in large vinyl letters on what we called our ‘Can You Imagine?’ wall.  We included brief descriptions of our ideas for the future, too. For example, at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, we called our office the ‘Junktion,’ and envisioned it becoming a famous tourist destination,  an idea generated by Katie Dunsworth.  Then there was Lindsay Peroff’s vision of seeing our company on Dr. Phil, which she later made a reality.

What we proved was that the visualization techniques taught by an ex-Olympic and sports psychologist were as applicable to business as they were to high performance athletes. We didn’t worry about how, and instead, focused on the end result, the vision of success.  By building on that concept, and involving employees, we enlisted people to help us create that vision, and make it a reality.  Then we figured out how to reverse engineer it to make it happen.  Scroll down here to read my Painted Picture for BackPocket COO.  Do you have yours in writing yet?