If you want to travel from Detroit to Miami, it’s a straight route down I-75. Stick to the freeway, and it’s almost impossible to get lost.

Want to travel from Havana to Miami? The trip’s a lot shorter, but it’s more complicated and could take a lot longer. Immigration laws prevent easy exit and entry. Skirt the laws and you could end up in jail. Or worse.

You can get to Miami – or anywhere you want to go – if you have a destination in mind and know what it takes to get there. Without a destination in mind, you might end up in Toledo or Tahiti instead of Miami.

If you’re an investor, owner of a family business or CEO of a mid-size company, it’s crucial to your success to have a destination in mind. Do you want a 20x return on your investment? Do you want to sell your company to a multinational corporation? Do you want to achieve Fortune 500 status? You can’t map out your growth strategy without an endpoint in mind.

But it’s also necessary to fully assess your starting point. If you want to become a $500 million or $1 billion company, how far away are you from that goal? If your starting point is $100 million, it will probably take longer than if your company is currently valued at $450 million. But your “distance” or dollar value from your goal is just one consideration.

If all systems in your company are working at optimal level – costs are low, profits are high, operations are efficient and morale is great – you might reach your financial or corporate goals in a fairly straightforward manner. It will be like driving from Detroit to Miami.

But, if you’re struggling to hold onto your market share, losing money despite great sales or suffering high employee turnover, it will take more effort to reach your goals. It will be more like getting to Miami from Havana or Tokyo.

Even if you’re doing most things right – and you probably are – but don’t fully understand your company’s strengths and weaknesses, you don’t have a starting point. And, if you don’t have firm plans for your financial and corporate future, you don’t have a destination. You won’t get anywhere.

Once you know where you are and where you want to go, it takes action to get there. You have to get in the car and drive.

Map. Vision. Performance. You need all three to achieve successful corporate growth.

Raz Silberman’s MVP System will show you where you currently are on the corporate map, help you create your vision for growth and teach you the optimal performance method to attain your goals.