Three ways strategy needs to change.
Last week, I shared my breakthrough. I realised there are these dynamite principles every founder should know… but they’ve been locked away—hidden in academia and billion-dollar consulting firms. These are the principles of business strategy. The ones almost every business breaks because they don’t know any better. My goal? Change that. I want to: Show […]
How I Went from Getting Fired by Big Corporations to Charging Them $20,000 an Hour
When you think “high paid strategy expert”, my story is not what comes to mind. I have no qualifications I have no MBA I have no PHD I didn’t go to a fancy school I didn’t do a relevant degree I never worked for slick consulting firm Technically I did work for two glamorous blue-chip […]
Recognise this? Signs you have a serious strategy problem
Imagine if you could solve 80% of your business problems in one hit. Well you can, if you get your strategy right. You see lack of strategy normally manifests in multiple downstream ways which founders are always stressing over, but which are often impossible to fix because their root is at a higher level. Sales […]
The differentiation trap: please stop making this mistake
The other week, I wrote about two of my favourite business words: “really” and “actually”. But now I want to rail against one of my most hated words: “Just”. As in, “isn’t this just…?”, or “aren’t you just talking about …?”. This is quite personal because I get this quite a lot when sharing strategy […]
The two most powerful words in business – use them constantly
Your language determines your thoughts. Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions determine your results. So I guess in a sense those postmodernists were right about something – the way you use language matters. More than you think. Luckily however we don’t need to overthink it too drastically when it comes to business. In fact […]
Struggling with your messaging? It’s easier than you think…
In this newsletter, I’m going to show you the easy way to turn strategy into world class messaging. Not just messaging actually – but world class sales, marketing, and branding; because at the end of the day all of these things are simply messaging applied in different contexts. I appreciate this will sound like heresy […]
The Casino Technique: why some people always seem to win, and others struggle
Do you believe that success comes down to luck? Whether it’s for your business or yourself, do you think that although your own actions are important, it is ultimately circumstance that separates the winners and losers? Clearly this is a tempting and logical conclusion. After all, if you look back on any success story, you […]
How I find market-bending strategies (without even trying)
This is the most powerful strategic technique that exists. So powerful in fact, that it isn’t only responsible for the development of the world’s best businesses —— it actually undergirds the development of every living thing on the planet. Oh, and what’s even better: it’s so easy that you barely have to lift a finger. […]
The 5 strategic mistakes (that don’t look like mistakes)
One of the things that makes strategy tricky, is that it’s war against yourself. It’s not really a knowledge-based discipline, like engineering or medicine, where you just have to know stuff. It’s more of a discipline of consistently and relentlessly going against your instincts, and what seems sensible at that moment in time. It’s sort […]
Sharing my vision: The Starbucks of Strategy
You know how they say “don’t talk about yourself, talk about your customer”? Yeah well just for today I’m going to ignore that, and talk about me me me – what I’m trying to do here, my vision for Basic Arts, and OK perhaps a little bit about what that might mean for you. Why […]