VALUE-BASED MARKETING can help you flesh out your business plan with a better sense of what to do and why. You dont just design your logo. You live it. You become what you say it stands for.

For example, take the computer dealer whose self-image and marketing literature are based on providing extra service for small business customers. The value proposition is about reliability, reassurance, competence and building relationships with clients instead of just selling boxes to customers; there is an implied price premium. That business cant just assert that position, it has to live it in all phases of the business. For example:

• A business like this needs a visible service area with service technicans behind a wide counter wearing professional-looking long white robes.
• This company needs to install systems -- not just sell them -- and train people to use them.
• They need to live out their pricing strategy, sell the relationship, not the specific product, and charging more. You cant claim to be about reliability and reassurance and then match the lowest discount price. Thats not credible. Its also not financially sound.
• Even in the allegedly unrelated areas -- like finance -- the business needs to live out the value proposition. Finance might normally be about collecting late bills from clients who are paying slowly. But with this kind of value proposition, finance should link back to sales, installation, support and training to make sure those foot-dragging clients arent unhappy with what they got.

Many businesses are in danger of forgetting what theyre about. You cant advertise friendly skies and not make every effort to have friendly employees. You cant advertise hospitality and offer hostility. You cant advertise service and offer long lines and frustration. You cant have gourmet pricing and bad fast food.

How does that work into business planning? Frankly, very well.

Start by defining your value proposition. Ask yourself what benefit you offer, what need do you fulfill, to what kind of customer and at what price level. Thats your value proposition.

If youre going to be good at this, stay skeptical. Test it. Could your competitors say the same thing? Would it be as true for them as it is for you? If the answer is yes, then you dont have it right yet. When you feel like you have the value proposition right, build your strategy around it. How do you deliver on your promise? How do you get the word out?

This is where most businesses stop. Be better than most. With your value proposition in hand, go department by department, function by function, through your business. Look at every function you have -- all the way from the top and the marketing and sales areas, through your operations, fulfillment and even finance and accounting -- and check for whether what youre doing supports, ignores or takes away from your value proposition.

Then turn that into concrete action points, steps to be taken, milestones, dates and deadlines then youll have a better business plan.

Tim Berry is the "Business Plans" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is president of Palo Alto Software Inc., which produces the industry's leading business planning software, Business Plan Pro, as well as other popular planning applications for businesses. He is the author of The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan and co-author of 3 Weeks to Startup with Sabrina Parsons, both published by Entrepreneur Press.