When writing a business plan for your company, you'll often notice that business plan templates or experts suggest you include a vision statement, a mission statement, and objectives. What are the differences between these three elements?
1. Objectives: The objectives of your business plan are the most important part. Spell out your goals; specify results and activities that can be easily tracked. Goals may include increasing monthly sales or profits to some specific number or by a specific percentage; decreasing costs or operating expenses to a specific number or percent; or finding a specific amount of new funding.
Objectives don't have to be financial. You can set objectives for performance, customer satisfaction, and other key elements of success, as long as you define how they will be measured. For example, if your business wants to serve the best coffee on the block, add that it will be determined by a random survey of customers (or by some other method). "Being the best" is great, but it isn't a business objective unless you can measure it.
