Story
Thinking Bigger with your Vision, your Board, and your Funding
Why start small when you could think BIG – and scale your impact – with your Vision, Board, and Funding. Here are some tips:
Go back up to 30,000’
Planes fly at 30,000’. It’s an altitude at which you can see the ‘big picture.’ 30,000’ is all about Vision. Most of us communicate at the 14,000’ (strategy) and 3’ (tactics) levels because that’s where we live day to day. However, the BIG sale, the BIG vision, and the BIG conversations happen at 30,000’. Once you get buy-in at 30,000’, then it’s that much easier to talk strategy and tactics.
On Strategic Plans
It can be really difficult to talk about what you’re going to do at 14,000’ if there is no consensus and clarity at 30,000’. Have you answered the questions, “What is our reason for existence? To what end?”
We spend every day at 3’
Your prospects don’t. We have a context for every detail (in our heads), but when we communicate in the details (without first having clarity/framing at the higher levels), it sounds a bit like the school teacher from Charlie Brown.
Asking for $1M
We’re sure there are many great things you could do to further your impact with $1M. And, we believe you should be bold enough to ask for it. But, if you do, you need to actually be able to communicate what you would do with that money – how it would further your impact.
Prospects will communicate at the level of your choosing
If you start the conversation talking about timelines or metrics and indicators or operational costs, your prospect will engage with you at that level, asking questions like, “Why exactly do you need two program coordinators for this program?” If you instead begin the conversation by sharing your vision for the future, you’re more likely to get responses like, “I’d like to hear more about how you are changing/saving/impacting lives.” It’s up to you to decide which way the conversation goes.
Be ready to talk about 14,000’ and 3’
Thinking BIG actually makes it easier to share at other altitudes. Once your prospect is all in at 30,000’, then you just need to show how your projects support that vision over the next 1,000 days. And of course, do the math on your projects.
