Have you thought about the 7 steps of business development?

Imagine your business is being sold, but only if it works. Imagine if your business worked without a lot of effort, and worked without you personally needing to put in that effort. It’d be a pretty cool situation, right?

That situation is possibly what attracted you to starting your own business. The freedom, the ability to have your own business and be your own boss. Any prospective seller would be impressed.

Sounds like a pipe dream? It’s not. 

With a business development strategy, this dream could be your business reality. 

Here are the seven steps involved:

1. Your Aim - What do you value most? What kind of life do you want? What do you want your life to feel like? The answer to these questions will be your aim. Who you are and your life is important. What you want out of life is important. 
   
2. Your Strategic Objective - What does your business have to do so that you can achieve your aim? This is the vision of the finished product of your business. It asks questions about money, and what kind of business you are.
   
3. Your Organizational Strategy - An organizational chart with clearly defined roles and responsibilities makes a business flow well. This enhances productivity and accountability. It helps everyone understand where they fit within the business.
   
4. Your Management Strategy - This is not a system, not an individual. This is putting in place the strategies that will help to ensure everyone has the same personal experience with your business. Hotels excel at this. Mints on pillows, complimentary coffee - these systems ensure customers feel cared for. They don’t change when the manager does, they’re established ways of doing things. 
   
5. Your People Strategy - This is about how people do what you’d like them to in your business. Often, getting them to ‘buy in’ comes back to our own attitudes towards business, and how we communicate this to others. It’s how you act, and the words you use.
   
6. Your Marketing Strategy - Should be all about your customer. 
   
7. Your Systems Strategy - All the systems in our business interact with one another in some way. How we manage our systems is vital to our efficiency and  communication about different information in our business. 
   

Have you thought about the 7 steps before?  Which do you find the most challenging?