Use your Business Strategy Plan to decide who the business serves, what it offers, how it earns money, and which priorities matter now. A useful plan gives your team and Cedros enough direction to choose between competing ideas.
This guide uses an illustrative bicycle-repair business to show what useful answers look like. Replace the examples with your own facts, targets, and evidence.
Open the plan and choose a starting point
Open Assistant → Strategy → Plans → Business Strategy Plan. If it is empty, choose Fill it in myself, or select Add details on a section. For existing answers, use Edit or Review suggestions.
Work through the sections below and select Save in each section before moving on. You can save partial progress. For help with the shared editor and answer statuses, see Setting up your business strategy in Cedros.
The six essential decisions are Main business outcome, Priority customer, Priority products & services, How the business earns money, Why customers choose us, and Business priorities. Start there if you need a first usable draft, then add the evidence and limits that make those decisions useful.
Set your goals and current situation
In Goals & Current Situation, give the plan a time frame and a concrete result:
- Planning period: choose the period these decisions cover, such as the next 90 days.
- Main business outcome: state what should change and by when. Use a measure you can check.
- Where we are today: record the current situation that affects your choices, including any reliable baseline.
- Main obstacle to growth: identify the constraint you need to address first, such as limited capacity, too few suitable inquiries, or low repeat business.
For the bicycle-repair example, an outcome might be: “Over the next 90 days, increase repeat repair bookings from commuter customers while keeping promised completion times reliable.” Add a numeric target only after checking the current booking records and available capacity.
Keep targets separate from results already achieved. If you do not yet have a baseline, say how you will establish one rather than supplying an estimate as fact.
Define customers, offers, and the business model
In Customers & Business Model, connect the customer need to an offer you can deliver:
- Priority customer: describe the group you are choosing to serve first, including its situation and main need.
- Priority products & services: name the offers you want the business to focus on during this period.
- How the business earns money: explain what customers pay for, how you charge, whether they buy again, and the main delivery costs or capacity limits. Use known prices where relevant.
For example: “Local commuters who rely on their bicycles for weekday travel. Prioritize common repairs and scheduled tune-ups. Customers pay per repair; parts and workshop time are the main costs, and daily capacity is limited by available mechanics.”
The priority customer should help you make a choice. “Anyone who owns a bicycle” is less useful when you need to decide which service to improve or which inquiry to prioritize.
Keep promotional deals and campaign details in Marketing Strategy. Use Product & Service Roadmap for the work needed to build or improve an offer.
Explain your positioning and evidence
In Positioning & Advantage, answer why the intended customer should choose you:
- Alternatives customers consider: include competing services and other ways to solve the problem, such as doing the work themselves or delaying it.
- Why customers choose us: describe the benefit that matters to your priority customer and that you can consistently deliver.
- Evidence of our advantage: record the facts that support the promise, such as measured turnaround times, relevant expertise, or verified customer feedback.
The repair business might focus on predictable completion times and clear estimates. That positioning is only useful if the workshop can support it. If you want to promise same-day repairs, check which repairs qualify and when capacity makes the promise possible.
Do not turn an ambition into a proven advantage. If the evidence is missing, record what you need to learn and use a claim you can currently support.
Choose priorities and tradeoffs
In Priorities & Tradeoffs, make the choices that will guide day-to-day decisions:
- Business priorities: name the few outcomes or changes you will pursue. Add an owner and a way to judge progress where you know them.
- How we will compete: explain the approach behind those priorities, such as specialist service, convenience, reliability, or a focused offer.
- Tradeoffs / non-goals: state what you will deliberately leave out or postpone during this planning period.
For example, the repair business could prioritize reliable booking slots for commuters, clearer service estimates, and reminders for customers who want ongoing maintenance. A matching non-goal might be: “Do not add nationwide bicycle sales during this period; keep workshop capacity focused on local repairs.”
Review whether each priority supports the main business outcome. If everything is a priority, make the order clearer and remove work that does not fit this period.
Record assumptions and tests
In Assumptions & Tests, use Assumptions and risks to record what must be true for the strategy to work, what could prevent it, and how you will find out.
A useful entry has four parts: the assumption, the evidence you have, the risk if it is wrong, and the next test. For example:
“Assumption: commuter customers value a reliable collection time enough to book ahead. Evidence: a few customers have asked for it; demand is not yet measured. Risk: reserved slots remain unused. Test: offer a small number of bookable slots, record take-up and late collections, and review the results before expanding.”
Keep an untested idea labeled as an assumption. If a question cannot yet be answered, choose Not known yet and explain what needs to be learned and the next step. Use Not applicable only when the question does not apply, with a reason.
Set measures, guidance, and a review rhythm
In Measurement & Review, connect the strategy to the way you will check and use it:
- Success measures: choose a few measures tied to the outcome. For the example, these might include repeat bookings, promised completion times met, and unused workshop capacity. State the reporting period and where the figures will come from.
- Strategy in one paragraph: summarize the customer, offer, advantage, priorities, and main limit for this period. Write it after the underlying decisions so it agrees with them.
- Guidance for Cedros: give specific instructions for work based on this plan, such as “Focus suggestions on local commuter repairs and flag ideas that exceed workshop capacity.”
- What other plans need to reflect: identify related decisions that need updating, such as customer profiles, support promises, roadmap priorities, and marketing messages.
- Review cadence and update triggers: choose when to revisit the plan and what changes should prompt an earlier review, such as missed targets, a new offer, or a major customer shift.
Some summary fields offer Draft from my decisions. This opens a prepared Strategy prompt; review it before sending. AI replies can add to your usage and costs. Read any proposed answer, correct it, then choose Accept reviewed answer and Save when appropriate.
Guidance for Cedros provides business context. Use assistant access controls to manage what the assistant is allowed to do.
Review the saved plan before using it
- Reopen the plan and read the saved summaries from top to bottom.
- Check that the customer, offer, business model, positioning, and priorities agree with one another.
- Separate known facts, targets, and assumptions. Review proposed answers before accepting them.
- Check the six essential decisions if the plan still shows Needs decisions. Unknowns and unreviewed suggestions do not count as resolved; Optional detail does not all need to be filled in.
- Review any related plans affected by the new direction. Saving Business Strategy does not rewrite those plans or start a campaign.
A Ready to use status means the readiness checks are satisfied. It does not verify the evidence behind your answers or guarantee the business result.
Keep the plan current when the business changes. Update the original decision rather than leaving conflicting versions in different sections. If a save reports a conflict, preserve your intended correction, use Reload latest plan when offered, and compare with the newer version before saving again.
For an unresolved editor problem, ask for help with the plan section, visible error, and approximate time. Share only the business details needed to explain the issue.