In his book The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber suggests that to grow a business to maturity requires a Business Development Process – A continuous process focused on building a sustainable business model by combining three key approaches which he defines as Innovation, Quantification and Orchestration.
The author suggests successful business leaders work through seven key stages as they build a sustainable growth business that will enable them to live the life they wish to live.
PRIMARY AIM
What is your purpose? What gives you energy and drive?
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE
What does your business have to do in order to achieve your Primary Aim? How do you measure progress?
ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY
How do all functions work together? Who is accountable for what?
MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
How can the business be managed such that it does not depend on highly competent managers? The more automatically the business is run the more ordinary employees can produce great results.
PEOPLE STRATEGY
How do you recruit and engage with employees?
MARKETING STRATEGY
What are the demographics and psychographics of your market? How do you satisfy your customer’s conscious and unconscious mind?
SYSTEMS STRATEGY
What hard systems (inanimate equipment), soft systems (people and processes) and Information systems do you need to support the business?
Written by Bob Bradley, founder of MD2MD.