If you want to write great strategy you must avoid these red flags...

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INTRODUCTION

Over the last eight months, I have shown you the strategy behind many a brilliant brand including Oatly, Bumble, Supreme & many many more. This week, however, I want to do something a little different. Why? Well, I have come to realise that one of the biggest issues in strategy today is knowing who or what to trust. The inconvenient truth is when it comes to strategy there are a lot of big opinions with very little understanding or hands-on experience. That’s why this week I am going to go back to first principles and offer up three things. First, I am going to give you a clearer definition of what strategy actually is and why it is so important. Second, I am going to reveal the three biggest red flags that get in the way of writing great strategy. By the end of it, I promise, your strategic thinking will vastly improve. Ready? Ok let’s break it down…

#1 WHAT EVEN IS STRATEGY?

When it comes to strategy there are a variety of different definitions thrown around. There is little point covering them all here. However in order to get to a better definition of strategy I think it’s useful to first call out what strategy definitely isn’t.

Strategy is not about growth hacking, hooks or copywriting tips. All of these are tactics. They are smaller, short-term tools to apply your strategy. This is an important distinction to make. Why? Well, far too many talk about ‘strategy’ when in fact they are talking about short-term tactics for growth. This is dangerous for two reasons. First, it leads brands to become blinded by short-term growth tactics or ‘hacks’ and neglect the long term. This is dangerous because long-term term brand building (derived from strategy) has been proven to be a far more effective way to unlock exponential growth. Second, an obsession with ‘growth hacking’ and short-termism too often sees the brand stumble around in all directions. It sees brands lack clarity & vision. It sees brands become highly inefficient and ineffective over time as they become incredibly wasteful.

Did you know that in a fairly recent survey by Marketing Week, “81% of senior marketers believe strategic thinking is the most important skill to develop”. Yet this raises a question…what the heck even is strategy? Well after being on the front line of strategy for far too long & after winning a few awards along the way too…here is my take.

A strategy is not a plan or a list, it is a path forward. A strategy looks at the current state of a company and evaluates where it is today, where it needs to be tomorrow and the best way to get there. The word ‘best’ here is particularly important to understand because you need to realise there is a certain lack of certainty when it comes to strategy. You see with strategy, like most things in life, there is no 100% path to guaranteed success. Simply it’s the job of great strategy to find the path forward with the greatest possible chance of success. It’s also about making a selection…we do this, but we don’t do that. Strategy is the opposite of ‘growth hacking’ where stuff is just thrown at the wall and you hope for the best. It’s about having a clear and calculated path forward, that guides all you do.

Whilst no two strategies are the same they do tend to follow a clear story arch. In chapter one they identify where the company is today (e.g. market share, growth rate, penetration etc.). In chapter two they identify where they want the company to be (e.g. grow the number of new buyers by x). In chapter three they define a big insurmountable problem they need to overcome (if you want to know more about this - it’s worth rereading my Oatly case study). Chapter four is where some new level of understanding about consumers or culture is unlocked. Chapter five is where a strategic positioning or plan is formed (tying the brand to this new understanding). Finally, in chapter six the strategy is evaluated. It is asked whether the strategy is working and what could be done to improve it.

Now we have a clearer definition of what strategy is and a framework for how it best unfolds, I want to move on to something which is equally if not more important. I want to show you three of the biggest red flags that too often get in the way of writing great strategy.

#2 THE CLEVER ONES

Want to know a secret? When I started out in strategy I was deeply insecure. When I rolled into my first few roles I was surrounded by people who were on paper far more intelligent than myself. How was I, a dyslexic with consistently dreadful spelling, going to compete? Well interestingly over time I have come to learn that intelligence is no guarantee for success when it comes to strategy. And, in fact, it is often determinal to great strategy. Let me explain.

Great strategy NEEDS to be simple, not complicated. It needs to be a simple and powerful distillation of where a company is now, the problem(s) it faces and the best path forward. It shouldn’t use flowery language, metaphors or ivory tower language. It shouldn’t use language that confuses or complicates. It should use language that inspires and motivates people (both inside and outside) the brand to adopt the strategy and move it forward. And if you ever meet a strategist who does the opposite of this….massive red flag. You see the greatest strategies don’t have the be written by those with the greatest intelligence. In fact often those with superior intellect struggle to step down from their ivory towers and keep things simple. They are either too trapped in their head or blinded by ego.

Now don’t get me wrong some of the greatest strategists I have been fortunate enough to work alongside, have been super smart people. Yet at the same time, they don’t try to be too clever. They have mastered the art of looking at a mass of information and data and distilling it into something simple, powerful & inspiring. Still don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the best brand purposes ever written by AirBnB & Nike below. Both a clear, powerful and captivate the imagination.

So next time you evaluate your own strategy or are following a strategy guru, be critical. Ask yourself, could this strategy be simpler? And is this guru masking clarity with impressive-sounding but ultimately confusing language?

#2 RISE OF THE ROBOTS

At the beginning of this newsletter, I mentioned how strategy deals with probabilities. How there is no 100% guarantee for success. This is important to understand because it reveals another big red flag to avoid. It reveals you should avoid strategies (and strategists) that only deal in data and are overly rational.

Over the years I have worked with many a strategist who loves data. They love to do rounds of quantitative research and test their strategy to within an inch of its life. Now don’t get me wrong research can be useful for both informing consumer truths and validating a hypothesis. However, there comes a point where all that data can become distracting. You get so bogged down in detail you fail to see the bigger, more inspiring strategic path forward. You see the best strategies take creative leaps. They should go beyond what we know and use creativity to unlock an unfair competitive advantage for a brand. If AirBnB had only looked at the data they might have defaulted to talking about locations instead of building a brand that helps everyone to ‘Belong Anywhere’. If Nike had only looked at the data they might have defaulted to selling sneakers instead of inspiring ‘everybody to be an athlete’.

In truth, from my own experiences, strategy is closer to “1% perspiration and 99% inspiration”. Now before the many strategists (who read this newsletter every week and never share it) freak out, let me explain myself. Great strategy should both inspire and sell. It should inspire the brand to follow a new, previously unimagined, path forward. It should also sell and get everyone to rally behind it.

So when it comes to writing a strategy or hiring a strategist, be wary of the robots. Be wary of strategies (or strategists) that are overly rational, bogged down by data and fail to inspire.

#3 LACK OF EXPERIENCE

If you will allow me I would like to finish this week’s newsletter with a bit of a rant. However, trust me it will be worth it. Why? because in my opinion, it reveals the biggest red flag of all. What is it? Lack of front-line experience.

I have seen tons of strategy gurus popping up of late in a variety of shape and forms. I have seen academics who have very little front-line experience in brand strategy. I have seen some see founders with good startup marketing experience, but very few strategic chops, talk about strategy too. However, to be brutally honest…just because someone says they know about strategy, doesn’t mean they know how to write a truly great one. Or how to apply it in the real world.

You see this brings me to my final point for this week. One of the most important things when it comes to writing great strategy is experience. If you want to learn how to craft great strategy you need to do two essential things. First, you need to pratice, pratice and pratice. Second, you should look to learn from ‘strategy in practice’…from real-world strategy examples and people who actually do strategy for a living (rather than sell stuff on Gumroad). Now if I wake up tomorrow and lose 1,000 subs from this newsletter I will have to face the grim reality that perhaps you think, unfortunately, I too might be one of the ‘fake gurus’ mentioned above. If you are still reading thank you (I’m grateful!).

COMMUNITY SHOUT OUT

Before I finish this week’s newsletter I want to introduce you to a new section of this newsletter. As you can imagine cutting through online is tough. I am on a mission to build the best marketing & strategy community on the internet. Yet the only way I can do this is if you lovely readers recommend what you see here. That is why this week I want to give a huge shoutout and thank you to Daniel Berk who shared the newsletter on Twitter this week. Every week, moving forward, I will pick one member who does the same.

CONCLUSION

If you got to the end of this week’s newsletter, thank you. I appreciate it was a bit of a long one. I do hope you found this week’s edition interesting and the lessons shown useful. To recap:

1. A strategy is the best possible path forward, not a plan or ‘growth hacking’.

2. Great strategy often follows a clear story arc.

3. When looking to build a great strategy avoid these three big red flags;

   1. Being too clever.

   2. Being overly rational (and not inspiring).

   3. Too much theory…lack of real-world experience.

Many thanks,

Will Poskett,
Founder of Defiant