You've Got to Have A Plan

     Ok so you've completed the process of acquiring a trademark.  You're off to a great start but you aren't quite ready to open your doors for business yet.   Next you need to come up with a business plan, a blueprint for how your business is going to be ran from top to bottom.  The business plan should include your Vision, your Mission Statement and an outline of your strategy. 
    A company's Vision is a statement outlining what you as the company hopes to achieve.  The vision should focus on the future and should be something that can be longstanding.  The vision should also briefly 

Vision, Mission, & Strategy work together

outline a company's core values and core beliefs which should remain true regardless of the state of the business.  For example Amazon's vision is-
"To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online". 
Your vision doesn't have to be overly complicated, it should actually be simple and to the point.
     The Mission statement is similar to the vision but instead of laying out a vision for the future the mission tells what the company's purpose is, and what goals it wants to accomplish now.  What is the reason your business exist? What activities are you doing (or hope to do) now?  An example of an effective mission statement is Apples- 

"Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad."

This is the 2017 revision of the mission statement.  To the contrary of the vision statement, which should stand the test of time, the mission statement is generally revised periodically.             

The 3rd piece to this puzzle is Strategy.  Strategy is basically saying how are you going to accomplish your short term (mission oriented) goals as well as long term goals (vision oriented).  Its awesome to have goals and say all of the things that you want to accomplish but its just amounts to "hopes and dreams" if you don't lay out a roadmap as to how your business is to achieve these benchmarks.  Your strategy should evolve and change with the business climate, as in lot of cases doing things the same exact way while the business world is changing around you could cause your business model to become outdated (unless your niche is an original formula that must be strictly adhered to).  One of the most effective strategies is Chick-fil-A's "Raving Fans'" Strategy (click on the link to read more).  Unlike the company's vision or mission the corporate strategy isn't just a sentence or two but is generally very detailed sometimes even to the smallest element.

     After you've added these major components you now need to develop Standard Operating Procedures (S.O.P.s) for business operations.  S.O.P.s help ensure that your business runs smoothly and with continuity.  After your S.O.P.s you need to come up with policies and guidelines that instruct you and your employees on what happens when something doesn't go according to plan (It is essential that all employees receive a copy of these policies and procedures also.  Most employers distribute them in the form of an Employee Handbook).

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