Focus: What you want to offer to the target customer and what you don’t; Difference: Why your value proposition is divergent from competitive alternatives.

I don't know about 15 words, but succinct and to the point is the best way to articulate a strategy. So much time is built constructing long strategy documents that sit on a shelf and are never read again. A mantra or a short strategic statement become rallying cries of the organization.

I had the pleasure of watching a keynote by Guy Kawasaki where he stated that every organization needed a mantra. It is something that has changed my way of thinking since hearing the logic behind his statements. It takes so much inertia to move an organization that having a simple mantra can rally the entire organization around a single statement.

The focus and difference in the strategy statement proposed by Alessandro Di Fiore are wonderful points. So many times the target customer is forgotten in an organization. In an age of growing earnings every quarter and constant pressure on short-term financial results, the target customer gets lost in the shuffle, replaced by revenue opportunities that alienate the target. The difference piece is key for the organization to understand what they need to deliver to that target customer. Once the organization understands why it's different, it becomes easier for everyone to deliver on the promise.