I Love Planning The VMOST (It's An Acronym, Sorry)

The most useful business planning tactic I’ve ever learned (and not even exactly sure where I picked this up) has the catchy acronym of VMOST. I say it “Vee-most.” In case you were wondering or already struggling to say it out loud too. Kind of my personal “S’Wonderful” of the business world.*

VMOST is my favorite business orientation tool because it forces everything your business (or big idea) wants to do into alignment. It also can highlight anything that’s out of line too. This framework has saved countless strategy sessions I’ve been a part of from meandering into oblivion, and it might just be the clarifying tool YOUR big idea desperately needs too.

Think of it as the best forcing function to getting your story back on track or pointed in the right direction in the first place.

VMOST is always there for me (and, always in my back pocket when I’m helping somebody else on a big business idea of any form).

I realized I hadn’t written about it anywhere, so I’m rectifying that. I’ll also add some personal notes for business planning work I’m in the middle of for myself.

V stands for Vision.

Vision is where you unapologetically claim your place in the future. It's ambitious by design and should make you slightly uncomfortable with its audacity. Braggy = a bonus feature. You don’t have to show people this part, but they should feel that you deeply know this too.

Your vision is your most grandiose goal for where you want things to land.

Cultish Creative Vision Example: I want to make the best YouTube/podcast, and personal archive/old school blog of my reflections, that the coolest people you know share with you like it’s a secret, when you’re trying to figure something out. “And,” they add in, “if you can’t find the answer in the free stuff? Hire him. What you see, as much as there is, barely scratches the surface.”

M stands for Mission.

Mission is where you get other people on board with you. This is why companies have mission statements and unfortunately why most of them are meaningless. If you say, “Our mission is total transparency,” and you can’t answer a customer question about what your salary is without feeling hesitant, you’re doing it wrong. The mission is what binds who and why together so you can attack the how that comes after this step.

Your mission is your pitch for why others want to join, support, and know about you on your vision quest.

Cultish Creative Mission Example: Cultish Creative is fundamentally about helping people make 3 core emotional transformations across everything I do. I help people move from feeling disconnected to feeling connected, with the ideas and people around them. I help people move from feeling uninformed to feeling informed with the way the world talks about anything they care about. And, I help people move from feeling callous and cynical to feeling curious and hopeful about all the opportunities they haven’t even found yet.

O stands for Objectives.

Objectives are the quantitative essentials that justify the qualitative Mission and Vision. Objectives measure if you’re on and off track. Objectives are as scary to set as they are essential. If you don’t have objectives, your business will aimlessly wander and never be accountable to anything concrete. If you embrace objectives, you’ll know if you’re making progress, or if you’re not, towards the goals that actually move the needle.

Your objectives are your primary targets that you’re trying to hit (and, by quantifying them, that you’ll know if you miss).

Cultish Creative Objectives Example (note that these are non-monetary for sake of this example, but on businesses, monetary is almost always an angle (I have monetary goals for my personal business pursuits): one Personal Archive entry every single day in 2025, one Cultish Creative YouTube video every single week in 2025, and a goal of 1000 YouTube channel subscribers by the end of 2025 (about 5x from where I started the year at 180, and I’ll even put it out there that my “stretch goal” is 2000. Subscribe if you haven’t please!).

S stands for Strategy.

Strategies are the plans to hit the objectives. They’re not to be confused with Tactics which are coming next. Strategies are the ideas of what you’ll do, with some justification tied to why they’ll help meet the Objectives. Strategies are like choosing which mountain you’ll climb, while tactics include what items to pack.

Your strategies are your methods for achieving your objectives.

Cultish Creative Strategy Example: the 1000 YouTube channel subscribers will require regular posts to the channel, listening to feedback/noticing feedback on post engagement, tweaking covers and intros (with my podcast partner Jack Forehand), and, most of all, consistently making sure whatever I make is worthy of my own reflections in the Personal Archive. The rest is Tactics.

T stands for Tactics.

Tactics are the blocking and tackling of strategy. The only difference between a Tactic and a Strategy is that a Tactic is always tied to a direct action, and never just a philosophical consideration. Tactics tell us what (literally) to do,

Your tactics are your time blocks and to-do lists for executing your strategies.

Cultish Creative Tactics Example: 3x per week time blocks to write and reflect on notes captured in my phone, 1x per week time block to edit and batch posts, 2x per week time blocks to record at least one Cultish Creative Podcast and edit it for release, 1-3x per week social media focus on promoting whatever episode has been released that week. These all require systems and scheduling!

VMOST works because it establishes a hierarchy of priorities. Where most people stumble with VMOST is in the misalignment between their ambitious Vision and their cautious Tactics. The framework demands consistency from top to bottom, which is precisely why it works. If your Mission doesn’t get people on board with your vision, what good will your Strategy be? If your Objectives are too big and your Tactics are playing it too safe, how will you know at the mid-year point you need to take some risk? You can’t hide outside of VMOST.

If you just look at the Cultish Creative examples and work backward, you’ll see that daily notes in my phone are getting converted, during time blocks, into posts and podcasts, which once ready, are being published and promoted. These tactics help me hit my strategic goals. The strategic goals help me meet my objectives, which are subscriber-focused on YouTube only, and otherwise process-focused because this stuff makes me happy. My mission keeps me honest with why I think people like my stuff. My vision keeps me centered on why the world might be a better place if I pull this off (and I might even have a better place in it if I do this well.).

Ask yourself - what would your VMOST reveal about the alignment between your grandest vision and your daily habits? Try the framework on whatever you're doing. This post is here, in my Personal Archive, so you can reflect on it too. Maybe I’ll even make a YouTube video about it.

And, never forget - sometimes the best way through a business maze is with a guide who's walked it before. If you're not sure where to start, you can always hire me. Get in touch.

*serious side question, which s’wonderful team are you on - Gene Kelly and Georges Guetary’s OR Audrey Hepburn and (aren’t you little old for, oh nevermind, Hollywood is weird) Fred Astaire’s?