Vision: Seeing the Big Picture

The leaders we call visionaries always combine a solid grasp of what their companies can do (and why it's better), mapped against a larger understanding of business and society. Each leader's personal brand is about his/her unique perspective about how things will substantially change in the future.

For example, Edison invented the first practical light bulb, but he wasn't in the light bulb business - he was actually in the electricity business, which is why he called his company Edison General Electric. He foresaw electricity as a transformative force in business and society.

Most of the time, effecting significant changes in a business or personal brand means stepping outside of day-to-day tasks and thinking about larger implications. For example, in the early days of the internet, I worked for an analyst firm that was bifurcated into two groups: market research and marketing consulting. Everyone was mired in customer interviews and writing playbooks, and the firm stayed small while similar companies grew large and broadly recognized.

On my way to work one day, I thought about what the competing firms were doing and realized that my firm's brand was fragmented and ineffective. I wrote a proposal that essentially said, "If you want to compete successfully in the internet research industry, act like an internet research company."

The project involved merging the two business units under one name and building a new website that projected technical savvy and market insights based on a recent report that projected the growth of the e-commerce market. This new vision gained maximum leverage for the company's strengths and fostered a $30 million equity event within a few months.

These pieces are written for founders and C-level operators at B2B technology companies. If you want this kind of writing under your own name, that is how I work, and pricing starts at $1,500.