The fatal flaw of trend-based brands

If you’re a founder, you probably got into the game partly through a desire for freedom.  Being your own boss and all that good stuff. Central to this desire is a yearning for control.  To be in control not only of your time, but of your destiny.  To incubate yourself from the arbitrary whims of […]

The correct use of a “why” within strategy

The following is an excerpt from a book I’m working on, called: No Bullshit Strategy: A founder’s guide to forming a strategy that actually works I hope to have it published by the end of this year, and obviously will promote it on here shamelessly, so hopefully it will be of interest to some of […]

Simple, easy, fun: The power of unconscious strategy

I routinely say that the vast majority of businesses “don’t have a strategy”, but if I’m honest, that’s not entirely accurate. In reality all businesses do, in fact, have a strategy.  It’s just that for most of them it’s unconscious. An “unconscious strategy” might seem like a contradiction in terms, given that a strategy is a […]

5 tips on executing strategy

You’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll hear me say it again: A strategy is only as good as the action it provokes. It’s not an intellectual discipline, it’s a practical one.  Aggressive, confident, coordinated implementation – that’s the actual product here.  Indeed I sometimes think that rather than talking about “strategy” as this […]

Stop confusing strategy and brand strategy

When I tell people I help companies with their “strategy” the response I invariably get is “what kind of strategy?”.  This is because people are familiar with isolated subsets of strategy (social media strategy, sales strategy, recruitment strategy, etc.), but they aren’t familiar with “company strategy” as a whole. This “holistic” strategy, which sits at the top […]

What are non-value strategies?

My definition of business strategy – which runs through all these pieces like a thread – is simple: It’s the unique value the business seeks to bring to the market. Businesses are nothing more than vehicles for value exchange, therefore it stands to reason that if you maximise the value you give, you’ll maximise the […]

Does culture *actually* eat strategy for breakfast?

Before getting into this, let me point you in the direction of the always-worthwhile Bread & Jam Festival, where I’m speaking in a couple of weeks. If you’re going to be in London and fancy swinging by I have a 20% off discount with your name on it right here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/243627625787/?discount=BASIC20 Now on with the business at hand… […]

Here’s how to get your organisation to commit to strategy

If any of you have read my free little ebook Make Companies Without Competitors, or seen my “Love your competitors” talk, you’ll know that central to my philosophy is the idea of non-competition. Contrary to the common metaphor of the market being “battle ground” or “playing field”, where there is implicitly an enemy to be […]

How to do strategy without sacrifice

By now I think we all know the basics. You want a good strategy?  Then you need to sacrifice.  You need to decide not only what you’re going to focus on, but also what you’re going to neglect. Typically this means deciding what you’re going to allow your competitors to have.  Picking the areas you’re going […]

What nature teaches us about strategy

Many of us are fond of using natural allegories in business. Most of these (such as “viral” or “organic” growth) are so embedded in the vernacular that their natural origins have been forgotten — however, there is one analogy which still draws on the natural world in a very conscious way: Darwinism. Darwinian language — […]