What is meant by the 5 Sustainability Pillars?
The Five Sustainability Pillars are the five base most essential components required in the development process of any business, especially those generating less than $250k annually. These pillars are meticulously constructed to evaluate and rate a business’s performance based on their completion and implementation of a specific development process, directly impacting their growth and sustainability. Each of the five Life cycle stages that a business will go through, is built around these five pillars. The way you and your business grows is mirrored in the increasing complexity and consistent review of these Five essential pillars of sustainability.
Infrastructure Pillar
The Infrastructure Pillar addresses the foundation of your business and the naturally cohesive components that work in tandem to fortify and fuel your company’s purpose, existence, and functionality. Bottom line: every business should have a solid base to begin from or refer back to in the event your company is currently on shaky ground. So in the Infrastructure Pillar, you will find questions related to your knowledge of business ownership, including what it means to be a business owner, and how you can be a business owner who thrives, creates, and maintains a sustainable business.
Just a few of the questions you will be asked include:
- Do you know what legal entity you need to apply for and why?
- Do you know how to create a mission and vision statement that gets your message across?
- Do you know why strategic relationships are crucial right from the start?
This Pillar is relevant because it addresses the basic questions of setting up a sustainable business, everything from having a name, email, physical address, and proper registration to the important steps toward developing a team.
Even though we refer to business owners as entrepreneurs or even solopreneurs, it does not mean you have to do this alone. On the contrary, you do NOT want to do this alone. The Infrastructure Pillar helps you lay out and understand the groundwork of setting up your business the sustainable way.
Infrastructure is a compilation of these five(5) key components:
- Knowledge
- Business Details
- Team Development
- Legal Formation
- Technology Details
Management Pillar
The Management Pillar is the second crucial focus area for Pillar Five and your business health. In addition to having solid infrastructure, the Management Pillar draws on questions related to the basic set up and management of a business, the team you have in place, and the implementation of solid plans for business sustainability.
The questions that are being asked here are intentional, as they will ultimately determine your company’s forward movement and if you are doing so in a way that aligns with a sustainable and achievable goal. For example: the creation of an advisory board is not necessarily one of the first things many entrepreneurs consider, yet it is one of the most crucial parts of creating and maintaining a viable business. You need to ask yourself why you need it and what will happen to your business if you don’t have one?
The Management Pillar also addresses some of the administrative areas that are not necessarily on the mind of most business owners, critical components such as a business plan, a launch plan, client niche, client attraction, and marketing. Lastly, it addresses the tough financial questions that any entrepreneur and their mentors need to be aware of, including personal financial status, business financial status, and the connection between the two.
These are often the most neglected areas as they are considered “background work.” Of course, as we said before, how can you build anything solid if the foundation isn’t solid? Without the Management Pillar, your business would miss out on the plan creation that leads to a solid launch and day-to-day business, both of which are crucial for long-term sustainability.
Management Pillar is a compilation of these ten (10) components;
- Team Development
- Business Plan
- Operational Details
- Growth Strategy
- Market Test
- Client Development
- Financial Strategy
- Financial Review
- Marketing Review
- Exit Plan
Marketing Pillar
The Marketing Pillar addresses the key marketing needs of your business and why they require groundwork and a consistent strategic sales process to take root. There are so many core business functions that stem from a good marketing plan that marketing can easily be considered the lifeline of a sustainable business. Thus, the Marketing Pillar is relevant because without marketing, there’s no brand and nothing a potential client or customer can relate his or her experience to. Marketing helps you inform, engage, and grow. And at the end of the day, no marketing means no sales.
In addition to the more easily understood and applied areas of advertising a product or service, marketing actually begins with the product development, which needs to be in line with a clearly-defined client or niche. This pillar draws on questions that will open your eyes to the idea that everything you do requires well-planned market research followed by carefully designed alpha and beta testing. The brand is also a crucial marketing component upon which all other sales components rest. Do you have a recognizable brand, and have you invested in a focus group to ensure you are meeting the needs of your target audience?
Many times, these areas of marketing are forgotten or entered into half-heartedly after a business has launched. It is important to note, though, that every time a product or service is created, it requires the same marketing diligence as the very first one to ensure sustainability of the product or service and the business itself. Without putting into practice all the elements of the Marketing Pillar, your business won’t be able to sustain its presence in the marketplace.
The Marketing Pillar is a compilation of these six(6) components;
- Client Development
- Market Test
- Marketing Details
- Marketing Review
- Technology Details
- Financial Strategy
Finance Pillar
The Finance Pillar addresses all aspects of the financial side of your business and the key questions you must have answers to from the very beginning so that you ensure your business can be launched successfully and is financed properly long-term. Most entrepreneurs find out the hard way that launching a company and maintaining it over time does not work without a forecasted financial plan, which includes everything from establishing separate bank accounts and having launch sales goals to ensuring consistent income, securing additional income, pricing your products and services accordingly, and being able to deal with rapid sales increases. And that’s just for starters.
In other words, starting a business requires money, and how much your company will need from the development stage through launch and many years down the road depends on many factors. Just a few of the questions you will be asked include:
- Have you determined the exact amount of capital, if any, needed to complete this Development/Seed stage?
- Do you have the necessary capital to cover your expenses until you're business is able to provide income?
- Does your business have a bank account, and is it separate from your personal accounts?
The Finance Pillar is relevant because it allows you to get a better picture of where your strengths and weaknesses are – whether you are launching a business right now or you are struggling to stay afloat five years later – and how to address them. Without putting into practice all the elements of the Finance Pillar, your business will never become self-sustaining.
Finance is a compilation of these five(5) components
- Financial Review
- Financial Strategy
- Financial Details
- Technology Details
- Owner’s Financial Review
Credit Pillar
The Credit Pillar is the final piece to the Five Pillars of Sustainability required in the development process of any business. The questions asked in this section help even the savviest entrepreneurs understand the differences between personal credit and business credit, and more importantly, how the two are more intertwined than they might think.
When you are starting out as a business owner, much of what investors and creditors will rely on to determine your company’s credit worthiness is your personal credit – specifically, looking at past credit behavior to determine future behavior. With that said, business credit is a track record of a business’ financial responsibility that companies, investors, or financial organizations use to determine whether or not they want to lend to that company and owner. Knowing what your company’s credit score and DUNS number is, including how to establish business credit and how to properly monitor active tradelines, is critical as you move forward and begin exploring credit opportunities with various lenders.
The Credit Pillar is relevant because it allows you to get a better picture of where you need to position yourself so that you can have the necessary capital to grow your business.
The Credit Pillar is a compilation of these two(2) components:
- Owner’s Credit Details
- Business Credit Details