Did you notice the silence? The lack of arresting headlines in your inbox? The absence of fantastical stories upon the THOUGHT LEADER TODAY bus?
I did.
TLT has been my weekly routine for months on end and to stop a couple of weeks ago was abrupt to say the least.
It’s one part of my life that brings me an immense amount of joy—something that I genuinely love to do. So why did I pause?
Like any break, it’s a combination of things. I’m trying to balance family, health, clients, and new ideas.
I’ve had bad headaches for weeks too. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Anyway, during the three or four times I sat down to write, I would click clack around and nothing was coming. I wrote a few paragraphs of what I learned that day, looked it over, deemed it unnecessary, and deleted it.
In my head I would ask, Who would want to read this?
I know what you’re thinking, “That’s never stopped you before!” It’s okay, you can roast me.
In the 100+ articles I’ve sent out, there have been a few head-scratchers. No doubt a handful of articles that probably should have baked in the oven a while longer.
Regardless, I’m happy to report that I feel myself coming out of this writing fog, and by so doing, emerge with this:
Ok, so it’s not a bunch of AI images of me in stunning outfits.
For the last month or so I have been pulling some of the best ideas on business and creative strategy I could find and putting them together in one place. I’m loosely calling it a strategy playbook, but you can think of it as a guide for thought leaders too.
Here is my ask:
If you find the snippet below interesting, you can respond to this email, call or text 801.901.0019, (the official TLT number) or talk with me on LinkedIn. Either way, I’d love to share some of my ideas with you and / or your team in the near future.
This is a free thing.
Not a, “contact me and I’m going to spam you until the end of time” type of thing.
👇
[enter the snippet, at the beginning of the playbook]
Strategy is the rarest animal in the business kingdom.
Many companies cannot answer the question, “What is our focus?”
They scratch their heads when they hear, “What are we giving people here that they can’t get anywhere else?”
Go ahead and try asking these two questions to friends about the companies they work in. Note the (lack of) response.
Don’t be too hard on them or anyone else for that matter. Very few businesses have an essential truth that is clearly articulated and spread.
Why? The realm of strategy is incredibly hard to define.
When you hear the word, the mind immediately goes to plans, goals, and action:
How to outmaneuver the competition
How to think a few steps ahead
How to gain a serious advantage in the market
How to play to strengths
All of these contain some level of truth but don’t paint the entire picture.
For our purposes, think of it as a hierarchy.
At the top, is the business strategy.
This is the unique method by which a company delivers value to the market, distinguishes itself from competitors, and gathers large profits.
That’s all you have to worry about.
It is the guiding force for all the questions that come later:
What is our product going to be?
How is it going to perform?
How are we going to take it to market?
How are we going to structure the company?
After business, we move down to brand strategy, which frames it in a way that consumers will find appealing.
A great brand strategy simplifies everything and tells the story in an unpredictable way.
In the case of “Find Your Greatness” with Nike, we see how it ‘fits’ with the strategic decision for new shoes and gear, but it doesn’t explain them.
You can’t reverse engineer the shoes out of ‘Find Your Greatness, as there is no content or context there. The specifics of how Nike were ‘finding greatness’ are hidden.
Finally we have Comms. Its job is to amplify the brand, hopefully in the most striking way possible.
The Got Milk? Campaign and the repositioning of Old Spice come to mind.
What we discover by going down the hierarchy is that we can create a comms or brand strategy from a business strategy, but not the other way around.
You can’t solve for bottom of the hierarchy if you haven’t done it at the top, which is honestly one of the biggest problems with marketers, strategists, and CEOs as they think through how to communicate their value.
[end of snippet]
Questions? Concerns? Rumors? Jokes? Creative Conundrums?
You know what to do.
Hasta luego. 👋
Lookin forward to reading it!