If you have been in business for any time at all, you have heard consultants, coaches, trainers, and gurus say that you must market, market and market. But businesses are not built by marketing alone. Marketing is only one of the foundational components of successful businesses.

Every long-lasting, financially rewarding business is built on the business success triangle - marketing, operations and finances. Striking a balance among these three areas can be challenging particularly for entrepreneurs who are often doing everything themselves. Imbalance occurs when the business owner focuses on the area they feel most competent in and forget or ignore the other areas all together. The good news is with a plan, these components can be built to support exponential growth.

Let's take a look at the three areas and what each is responsible for:

• Finance: The first arm of the triangle is finance. Even businesses built on a shoe string budget, must have some financial resources to survive. Responsibilities in this area include developing budgets, handling cash flow, managing taxes, and paying you and vendors. Most entrepreneurs and small business owners find that is is best to outsource this component as soon as possible so that they can focus on the what they do best - product development and marketing.

• Operations: Operations focuses on the nuts and bolts of running the business including business structure, business management, legal issues, risk management, implementation and product delivery.

• Marketing: Certainly, marketing is the heart of the organization providing the energy that fuels the entire business. Without marketing, there would be no money for finance to manage nor products for operations to deliver. Responsibilities include idea and concept generation, product development, finding and communicating with customers and prospects, managing and developing strategic alliances, joint ventures and affiliates, media, branding and publicity.

When all three components work together in a systematic manner, the business is poised for explosive growth and financial rewards.