The Business Development Program (Seven-Step Prototype Builder)
Seven strategies that turn any small business into a system that works
The Business Development Program is the complete step-by-step method for converting an existing business (or planning a new one) into a Franchise Prototype. It consists of seven integrated strategies, each flowing from the one before it: (1) Your Primary Aim -- what you want your life to look like, (2) Your Strategic Objective -- what the business must do to serve your life aim, (3) Your Organizational Strategy -- the structure of accountabilities, (4) Your Management Strategy -- the system that produces results, (5) Your People Strategy -- how you create an environment where people thrive, (6) Your Marketing Strategy -- understanding what your customer actually buys, and (7) Your Systems Strategy -- the technical, operational, and human systems that make it all work.
The revolutionary insight is that the program begins not with business analysis but with life design. Your Primary Aim is answered by imagining your own funeral and scripting what you would want said about your life. Only after this existential clarity do you turn to business strategy. This ensures the business serves the life, not the other way around. The Strategic Objective then translates life goals into concrete business standards: revenue targets, opportunity assessment, customer demographics and psychographics, and operational benchmarks.
The organizational, management, people, marketing, and systems strategies then build the infrastructure to achieve those standards. The Organization Chart is created for the business as it will look when complete, not as it exists today. Position Contracts replace vague job descriptions. The Management System replaces individual manager judgment. The People Strategy treats the business as a game worth playing, with rules, victories, and meaning. The Marketing Strategy recognizes that customers buy feelings, not commodities. And the Systems Strategy integrates everything into a coherent whole.
- Your business is not your life -- your business exists to serve your life's vision, not consume it.
- Great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives passively.
- Your Organization Chart should reflect your finished vision, not your current reality.
- The system produces the results; your people manage the system -- not the other way around.
- Customers don't buy commodities -- they buy feelings, and your marketing must address the feeling, not the thing.
- Define Your Primary AimImagine your funeral. Script what you want said about your life. Answer: What do I value most? What kind of life do I want? Who do I wish to be? How much money do I need to be free? This script becomes the standard against which your entire life -- and business -- is measured.Pro tipDo not edit yourself during this exercise. Write freely. The Technician will try to be practical; the Entrepreneur needs to dream first.WarningSkipping this step makes everything that follows hollow. Without a Primary Aim, the business becomes just another job.
- Set Your Strategic ObjectiveCreate a clear list of standards for your business: revenue targets (gross and net), timeline, geographic scope, type of business, opportunity assessment (demographics and psychographics of your customer), and key operational benchmarks. The Strategic Objective is a tool for implementation, not rationalization.Pro tipThe first and most important question: is this business an Opportunity Worth Pursuing? If it cannot fulfill your Primary Aim's financial requirements, walk away and find one that can.WarningDo not confuse your commodity (what customers carry out) with your product (how customers feel walking out). Revlon makes cosmetics; it sells hope.
- Build Your Organizational StrategyCreate an Organization Chart for the business as it will look when fully realized, not as it exists now. Define every position with a Position Contract specifying results, accountabilities, standards, and a signature line. Then put your own name in every box you currently fill.Pro tipThink of yourself as an employee of your own business who happens to hold multiple positions temporarily. Sign each Position Contract to make the accountability real.WarningOrganizing around personalities instead of functions is a recipe for chaos. The structure must be based on accountabilities, not on who happens to be available.
- Design Your Management StrategyCreate a Management System -- not a search for talented managers. The system should be a checklist-driven, documented process that produces marketing results automatically. Design it so that a person with no industry experience can manage effectively by following the system.Pro tipStudy the hotel example: color-coded checklists, room drawings, preference tracking systems. The magic is in the small systematic touches, not in superhuman management talent.
- Implement Your People StrategyCreate an environment where doing the work well is more important to people than not doing it. Communicate the idea behind the work before the work itself. Structure hiring as a scripted, multi-step process that conveys your business philosophy. Establish the business as a game worth playing with clear rules, periodic victories, and genuine meaning.Pro tipThe Boss's first day conversation with a new hire is more important than any amount of technical training. Lead with purpose, not procedures.WarningIf you create a game you are unwilling to play yourself, your people will find you out and never let you forget it.
- Develop Your Marketing StrategyBuild your marketing around your customer's demographics (who they are) and psychographics (why they buy). Recognize that the customer buys feelings, not things. Design every customer touchpoint to deliver the feeling your business promises.Pro tipConduct a Needs Analysis: call 150 customers and ask how they feel about your category, what they want, what frustrates them. The answers will reshape your entire approach.
- Integrate Your Systems StrategyWeave together your hard systems (technology, equipment), soft systems (scripts, processes, human interactions), and information systems (tracking, feedback, metrics) into one coherent operating platform. This integration is what makes the Franchise Prototype self-sustaining.Pro tipThe hierarchy of systems is: How We Do It Here, How We Recruit and Train People to Do It Here, How We Manage It Here, How We Change It Here. Build in that order.WarningSystems without purpose become bureaucracy. Always connect each system back to the Primary Aim and Strategic Objective.
Sarah began with her Primary Aim: reconnecting with the spirit of caring her aunt had taught her. Her Strategic Objective became four shops producing $1.8M annually in seven years, sellable for over $1M. She built an organizational chart for all four locations, documented pie-baking processes, and designed a people strategy where employees would learn the philosophy of caring before learning to bake.
Watson said IBM succeeded for three reasons: he had a clear picture of the finished company, he asked how such a company would act, and he began acting that way from the very first day. Every day at IBM was about business development, not doing business.
Gerber developed this seven-step program through over 25,000 client engagements at E-Myth Worldwide over more than two decades. He found that most business advice failed because it started with the business rather than the person. Owners who could not articulate what they wanted from their lives could never design a business that served them. The funeral visualization exercise became one of Gerber's most powerful tools for breaking through the Technician's tunnel vision and awakening the Entrepreneur's capacity for vision.