This one-page business plan is basically a blueprint for getting your whole organization on the same page, both literally and figuratively. It takes everything that usually lives in 40-slide decks and scattered spreadsheets and forces it into a simple structure you can actually use to run the business.
Here’s how it works, section by section:
1. Foundation: Why you exist and how you work
The bottom of the page is your foundation:
- Mission – a clear statement of why your organization exists. Not marketing fluff, but the real reason you get out of bed and do this work.
- Core values / points of culture – how you expect people to behave when no one’s watching. These are the guardrails for decision-making and hiring.
If you get this wrong, everything else above it becomes noise. This is the “non-negotiable” layer the rest of the plan sits on.
2. Vision: Where you’re going
Above that is Vision – your 10-year view of the future.
This answers:
- What does success look like a decade from now?
- What kind of organization are we trying to become?
It’s long-term on purpose. You’re not trying to predict every step, just define a clear destination so short-term decisions line up in the same direction.
3. Competitive Advantage & Strategy: How you’ll win
Next comes Competitive Advantage & Strategy – this is the bridge between big-picture vision and day-to-day choices.
It covers:
- Sustainable competitive advantage – what you can be uniquely good at over time (not just “great service” or “we care more”).
- Guiding principles – how you’ll “play the game”: what you will and won’t do in the market, what you prioritize, how you make tradeoffs.
- How will we win / how will we play? – clear strategic positioning, not just vague ambitions.
This is where you stop being generic and decide what makes you different and hard to copy.
4. Strategic Plan: From 3 years to 90 days
The heart of the document is the strategic plan grid. It takes strategy and breaks it into time frames and focus areas.
You organize work into four big pillars:
- Financial Results
- Success in the Marketplace
- Operational Excellence
- Skillsets & People Expertise
Within those pillars, there are prompts like:
- Target market
- Product / service portfolio
- Go-to-market strategy
- Process standardization
- Productizing services
- Quality and responsiveness
- Organizational design
- Talent upgrading
- Management & leadership development
Across the top, you work in different time horizons:
- Strategic Priorities (3-year) – what must be true in the next 3 years to move toward your vision.
- 3-Year Objectives – concrete outcomes tied to those priorities.
- 20XX Goals (1-year) – what has to happen this year specifically.
- Initiatives (90 days) – the actual projects and actions for the next quarter.
That 3-year → 1-year → 90-day cascade is critical. It keeps you from writing a “strategy” that never turns into work people can actually do.
5. Implementation & KPIs: How you stay honest
The last piece is Implementation – how you’ll hold yourselves accountable.
Two things show up here:
- Management systems – the operating rhythm: meetings, reviews, check-ins, planning cycles. This is how you keep the plan alive instead of treating it as an annual exercise.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – “How we measure success” and “progress to goals.” These are the numbers that tell you whether all those initiatives are actually working.
Without this layer, a one-page plan is just a poster. With it, it becomes a management tool.
How to actually use this
This template isn’t meant to be filled out solo by one exec at midnight. The real value comes from:
- Getting your leadership team in a room
- Arguing your way to clarity on each section
- Committing to a small number of priorities per quarter
- Reviewing it regularly and updating the 90-day initiatives as you learn
Used well, this one page becomes:
- The backbone of your leadership meetings
- The reference point for “Should we do this?” decisions
- The link between strategy, people, and performance
It’s simple on the surface, but if you’re honest while filling it out and disciplined about revisiting it, it will give you more alignment and traction than a 40-page strategic plan ever will.