Can you state in 20 words what you do (in your business) and who you do it for?  If you can't, you should really consider tightening your focus.  If you can say, “We sell widgets to aircraft manufacturers that are used for navigation in general aviation aircraft,” or something similar, you know who you are and what you do.  If it takes a paragraph or (heaven forbid) a page or more to explain who you are, what you do, and who you do it for, your business very likely suffers from a lack of focus.

I remember working with a struggling company in the '80's.  When I first met the CEO I asked, “Please tell me who you are as a business and what you do.”  He looked at me like I was a little kid and needed to spoon-fed his response.  “Well,” he started, “that's pretty complicated.”  I told him I thought I could understand and so he took the next 45 minutes trying to explain who they were and what they did.  At the end of the conversation, I still wasn't sure I had it all down right.

No wonder that business was failing.

This problem is more often seen in companies with older management teams that with younger ones.  Generations “X'ers” are more used to text messaging and other means of shorthand communication, so they're accustomed to boiling things down to just their essence.  Ask a young person what they do and they can almost always give you a concise answer.  That's what we all should do.

Make sure you know the answer next times someone says, “Who are you?”