You make your strategy easy to repeat by shrinking it to one or two plain sentences that answer three questions: Who do we serve? What do we promise them? What makes us different? Then you repeat it often, in meetings, in training, and in everyday decisions, until everyone can say it in their own words. Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up framework stresses that a strategy the frontline team cannot explain will not be carried out. Here is how to get there, in our own words.
These steps work for any business, large or small.
This post draws on ideas from Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up framework. The explanations and examples here are WeKinnect’s own words.
A strategy only works if people use it to make choices. The dishwasher, the bank teller, the tour guide, and the plumber make dozens of small choices every day. If your strategy is three pages of business language, they cannot use it. If it is one clear sentence, they can.
Simple does not mean shallow. It takes careful thinking to say something important in very few words.
Simple also helps customers. When your whole team describes you the same way, people know what to expect.
Try filling in this sentence: “We help [who] get [what promise] because we [what makes us different].”
Examples:
Your first try will be too long. Keep cutting until a new team member can say it after hearing it once.
Ask five team members, “What is our strategy?” Do not coach them. Just listen. If the answers are very different, your strategy is not yet clear. That is useful information, not a failure.
Then share your draft sentence and ask, “Does this match what you see every day? What is missing?” Frontline people often spot what leaders miss.
Leaders often feel they are saying the strategy too much. Usually they are not saying it enough. Mention it in weekly meetings. Use it when you praise someone: “You helped that family eat well tonight, which is exactly our strategy.” Put it in your onboarding. Repetition is how a sentence becomes a habit.
The real test of a simple strategy is whether it helps people choose. When a team member wonders whether to stay late to fix a customer’s problem, or whether to add a new menu item, the strategy should point the way. Teach people to ask, “Does this help us keep our promise to the people we serve?”
A sentence is a start. Stories make it stick. Each week, share one real example of someone on your team living the strategy. Maybe a server noticed a family in a hurry and got their food out fast without cutting corners. Maybe a technician stayed an extra few minutes to explain a repair. When people hear stories, they understand what the words look like in action, and they start creating their own.
The best strategy sentences start with the customer. “We help…” puts others first. That simple word choice reflects Service before Self. When your team repeats it, they are reminding themselves every day that the business exists to serve.
One or two sentences. A new team member should be able to repeat it after hearing it once.
Who you serve, what you promise them, and what makes you different from other choices they have.
Ask several people to explain it without help. If their answers match in meaning, it is clear. If not, simplify and repeat it more often.
Written By
Darlene Gagnon is the founder of WeKinnect Global Branding Agency. Guided by the core value of Service before Self, she works with entrepreneurs and family-owned legacy businesses. She focuses especially on restaurants, arts, and travel and tourism. Darlene writes on Branding, Positioning, Marketing Strategy, Public Relations, Storytelling, and Entrepreneurship. WeKinnect serves entrepreneurs and family-owned legacy businesses across restaurants, arts, travel and tourism, banking, home services, nonprofits, and the pet industry, and Darlene brings that same spirit of service to every piece she writes.
Darlene Gagnon
16 Oct 2026
