Business Strategy and Marketing Solutions

Business Strategy and Planning: The 3 Key Objectives

When forming your business strategy, consider these 3 key objectives that every business plan should have. If one is missing then the plan is incomplete. More objectives may be added, but these three suffice, and this greatly simplifies the business planning process.

The 3 key objectives are:

1. People: Every business must maintain its health by growing the people it serves. These people go by different names such as customers, clients, members, or pledging units. They form your base and you should look for growth, even in small increments, from this base.
2. Money: Serving people well permits you to earn money in the form of sales, profits, or cash flow, for example. However, simply increasing money does not indicate a healthly business. For example, using promotions to drive topline sales may mask an erosion of customers. So, it is critically important to begin with the people component and then examine the money component.
3. Image: Image, in the form of brand identity for example, is the less tangible but nevertheless equally important complement to money. It encapsulates why people spend money on your product or service.

Plan, monitor, and manage People, Money, and Image through specific objectives and you have the key to an effective business plan and strategy.Mission: To help small and mid-size businesses capture the power of big-picture marketing.