Maybe after last week’s post, you’ve written 6 blog posts. Whatever the strategy and plan was, you’ve just written them.
Maybe you made a whole load of TikTok videos for the first time. Just because it feels like in 2024 that should be part of your strategy.
That’s not really a strategy, is it?
There’s nothing earth shattering in this post. Because most of the time the best advice is consistent throughout the years.
And having a strategy before you have a plan is still good advice today.
I don’t know who had the first strategy (let’s blame the Romans, strikes me they probably needed them).
But for thousands of years we’ve been talking about being strategic in our choices. So why are we still not doing it?
What comes before planning?
To know what goes in the plan, from our marketing plan to our social media plan, then we need to have a strategy.
Why?
Because a plan is just a list of actions. If we don’t know what we’re aiming at, then how do we know that all those actions add up to take us to the right place?
The prospect of defining our strategic intent often frightens people more than suggesting we need a plan.
It’s not rocket science
Here’s my advice. Go read everything Alex M H Smith has to say about creating a strategy, either on his website, or on LinkedIn. Buy his book.
He writes the most sense I’ve come across on strategy and planning. It’s changed how I approach both things.
Write one now
It’s great to read all this insight, but unless we put it into practice, commit something to “paper” then we’re no better off than last year.
The big thing for me is having a strategy that isn’t just stuck in the desk drawer, job done. It should be thing that drives every decision we make.
When we come to make a choice about what’s on the plan, we go back to the strategy and think about if it moves us closer to achieving that.
Why is the copywriter talking about strategy?
Some of you might be thinking I should get back in my writing box. But here’s the reason why I feel strongly about having a strategy, something that we all probably want to get right.
The clients I work with who have a clear strategy spend less with me, and get better results. Which means they’ve got more money to invest in other work with me.
Of course I won’t insist you have a strategy before I work with you. This is just my observation. Having a strategy, identifying the playing field you want to win on, means you’re less likely to just generate a plan of scattergun activities.
Plans from a strategy tend to have a much greater chance of success.
So, what’s in yours?
