Most "strategy" is bullsh*t.

Complicated.
Dense.
Timid.

And fundamentally incapable of doing the job it's meant to do: inspiring bold action that creates incredible results.

Great strategy is simple.

It's clear.
It's brave.
It's mischievous.

You can explain it to anyone, and they won't only "get it"; they'll be energised by it.

Follow me if you want to learn how to do strategy this way.

Here's how:

_________

1. Work with me

Each year, I work with 10 clients, and do a number of speaking engagements.

This is for brands who are ready to cut through complexity, and make waves in their market with confidence and clarity.

I’m with you every step.

If this might be you, drop me a DM or check out www.basicarts.org/work-with-alex/ 

_______

2. Get a new strategy technique every week

...by joining 25,000+ others  in the best strategic thinking community on the internet, The Hidden Path. You'll also get two free tools to sharpen and tidy your thinking. Just go here:

www.basicarts.org/template

_______

3. Master the basics for the price of a cocktail

...by reading my book, No Bullsh*t Strategy. It'll teach you everything you need to know in one 138 page hit.

Just search for it on Amazon, or wherever you like to buy books.

______

4. Subscribe to my YouTube for weekly masterclasses

You'll find it here: youtube.com/alexmhsmith

______

5. If you're a small business or strategy pro...

...then you can get my entire approach, ready to roll, in the Strategy Shortcut System. Use it on your own business, use it on your clients - either way it's the fastest and funnest way of getting competitive advantage on the planet.

www.strategyshortcutsystem.com

_________

Never forget, business should be an adventure.

And strategy?  It’s the map.

Let's set out.

Alex

Alex M H Smith

Are there more important strategy skills than these?

Sure. But that's the boring stuff.

Here, I wanted to create a list of less obvious things. The skills people don't tend to talk about, but which I think are pretty damn useful.

Here's a brief explanation of each.

1. Writing well

Writing is thinking that you can share. And this is pretty much the whole of what strategy is - thinking then sharing it - so honestly, you can't do without this.

2. Feeling comfortable generalising

Strategy is about zoomed-out, big-picture perspectives. And that means painting with a broad brush. Some people don't feel comfortable doing this, and so strategy isn't for them.

3. Being a teensy bit negative

If you're doing strategy, you're trying to improve something. Which must begin with noticing what's wrong with it. You can't be a cheerleader for something, and change its path.

4. An eye for aesthetics

Partially this is about pattern-spotting (a core strategy skill). But it's also about influence. If you want to persuade people, then make it pretty.

5. A sense of humour

Yes, it helps with rapport - but more importantly humour comes from observation and lateral thinking. I don't really see how you can be a good strategist without being kinda funny.

6. Being a PowerPoint master

Oh man do I love PowerPoint (or Keynote in my case). And you've got to. Knowing the art of pleasing rhythmic presentations is huge, since this is how you're probably going to sell your idea.

7. Kindness and warmth

People won't listen to you if they don't like you.

8. Radical simplification

My favourite strategy question to ask is "give me this gist". Being able to simplify to the gist shows understanding, and drives clarity.

9. Curiosity

You need to just be generally interested in random "stuff", and gather it in the library of your mind - since you never know when the most obscure thing might come in handy.

10. An authoritarian streak

Hey, you don't have to like it, but eventually you're going to need to tell people what to do. Many great thinkers have been undone by not having the confidence to do this.

11. A distaste for perfectionism

A great strategy is always a bit of a punt, that might not stand up to minute scrutiny. So sometimes it's best to just trust your gut, and see how it goes.

12. A touch of cynicism

You are trying to work with how the world is - not how you wish it would be. So you need to be a realist about human nature, and the darker side of the world.

13. The ability to touch-type

This means you can write as quick as you can think. Insanely underrated.

14. Understanding branding

Most strategy is not branding - but a bit of it is, and it's the less "rational" part. You can't truly understand market dynamics without it.

15. Storytelling

A strategy, in the end, is a story. And it will work to the extent people are captured by it.

___

Got any more? Put em in the comments.

Refine all these skills, for free, here: https://lnkd.in/eJSPsGUf

No Bullsh*t Strategy | Helping the world’s most iconic brands make smarter, braver decisions | Author | Advisor | Speaker

John Harrison ⚛

Copywriting.io

I use my battle tested writing frameworks to help businesses launch and sell their products.

* I write high converting web copy, landing pages, sales funnels, and emails
* I help businesses work out how best to present their value proposition
* I write user focused copy

Clients include:

* napo.pet
* smarterrent.com
* red-on-line.com
* zerodown.lease
* boltenergyservices.com

Freelance Copywriter

Penfriend

I'm Co-Founder and Head of Copy at Penfriend. Using AI we generate high quality blog articles based on a proven content strategy that's delivered £36.1M in client revenue.

Co Founder

Wayhome

I was employee #15 and part of the core team that launched Wayhome, a financial services company innovating in the property space with £500 million of institutional capital. As the only words person I sat across product, marketing, and operations writing web copy, emails, landing pages, forms, customer comms, internal guides, and pretty much everything else that needed words.

* I wrote email campaigns with 65%+ unique open rates and 7%+ unique click through rates
* I defined our value proposition, which led to us finding product-market fit 
* I led user research projects to reveal insights about our customers
* I led product focused projects set by senior leadership and exec 
* I trained the company to write well through style, content, tone, and voice guidance
* I wrote FCA compliant copy

Copywriter

Jenny Schwarz

Jenny Schwarz is the menswear label I co-founded in 2011. It was my baptism of fire in entrepreneurship in, arguably, one of the most competitive industries to launch a new business. In 2015 I raised a £77,000 angel investment for the company.

I created a strong, unique positioning in an extremely crowded market. 'Rugged Elegance' was the identity and narrative that grew from the brand's historical influences in Jenny's Great-Grandfather who was a bespoke tailor and an adventurer. 

Copywriting experience:

•	Created and iterated the branded, digital experience on JennySchwarz.com.
•	Managed social media across multiple platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
•	Wrote press releases, articles for magazines and Q&A for fashion publications.
•	Maintained the company journal, delivering unique content on a daily basis. 
•	Wrote the business plan that secured the company £77,000 of angel investment.
•	Managed all the communication with third-parties including distributors, manufacturers, PR companies, sales agents, journalists and customers. 

Jenny Schwarz has shown collections at London Collections: Men, in Paris and at Vienna Fashion Week attracting clients including Graham Norton, Travis Fimmel, Brooklyn Beckham, Imagine Dragons, Kings of Leon, The Script, Gary Numan, Marlon Wayans, Kasabian, Labrinth, David Gandy and Conor Maynard.
 
Our garments have been featured in GQ, Gay Times, Wonderland, Vogue China and on the cover of LA Fashion Magazine.

Director

👀 LAST DAY to get 30% off Penfriend

Do you know how to persuade? 
How to be concise? 
Or engaging? 
Or clear? 

Can you justify every single word in your copy?

Or is copywriting still a mystery?

Perhaps you're

+ struggling with low conversions?
+ nervous about pressing publish
+ hesitant about pressing send?
+ tired of bad copy costing you money?
+ failing to captivate your customers?

There's a logical reason for it, and it's not your fault.

School taught you terribly.

Actually, it's worse.

They taught you the exact opposite of what you need to know today.

7 ways school screwed you over:

1/ Not taught how to persuade or convince
2/ Not taught to consider the purpose of writing
3/ Not shown what could be edited
4/ Feedback was vague like "be more descriptive"
5/ Taught to see writing as a cReAtIvE pursuit
6/ Grammar was obsessed or glossed over
7/ Rewarded for hitting an arbitrary word count 

Whether you know it or not, you're fighting years of that bad training. 

So now:

1/ You can’t effectively make your point
2/ Your writing is unfocused 
3/ Your message is unnecessarily cluttered
4/ Your writing lacks insight
5/ Your writing rarely achieves anything
6/ Your writing is either rigid or unstructured
7/ Your quantity kills your quality 

Reputation, damaged.
Opportunity, hindered.
Ideas, muted.

Everything is at risk.

Because words are everything. 
They’re how we make things happen. 
Or not.

And if you don’t learn how to write well:

1. You’re relying on guesses and luck
2. Other people will out-write you

+ They’ll get your client
+ They’ll make your money
+ They’ll have your freedom
+ They’ll land your dream job
+ They’ll enjoy your pay rise
+ They’ll launch your business
+ They’ll become the authority
+ They’ll secure your investment
+ They’ll convince your customers
+ They’ll persuade your prospects

They'll dictate your future by better controlling the tools of communication. Words.

It's as simple as this:

You get cash when your reader:

+ can make decisions
+ because they understand
+ because you made it clear

The better the copy, the more money you'll make.

I can help you control words.

And well enough to dictate your future, by writing it into existence. 

I’ve spent 10,000+ hours copywriting and nearly 550 hours condensing what I’ve learned into my copywriting guide. 

Be concise
Be convincing

Be powerful
Be persuasive

John Harrison

I’ve become obsessed with a strange little corner of the internet and it’s inspired a small side project.

Every day, thousands of .com domain names quietly expire.

Not because the ideas are bad, but because the owner forgot to renew, shut the business down, rebranded, or just moved on. But those domains don’t become immediately available to the general public. They go into expiring auctions that very few people know about.

Buried in the mess of long, ugly, hard-to-spell domains, there are gems that already look and feel like real businesses.

Names like YachtWeddings (dot) com, ArtAdvisor (dot) com, BusinessDebtRelief (dot) com, and SmartPatient (dot) com.

These names give their owners an unfair business advantage:

They turn more visitors into leads and customers.

They look and feel more legit, so people trust you faster.

They act as a built-in pitch, so every ad, cold email, and landing page has less work to do.

They make paid acquisition cheaper and easier to test.

They even leave you with a valuable asset, if the project doesn’t work out.

But here’s the catch:

New lists every day, thousands of names at a time, and once a good one is gone, it’s usually gone for good or only comes back at a much higher price.

Most builders don’t have the time or appetite to dig through all of that every day.

So I built BusinessReadyDomains (dot) com.

Once a day I send a short email with a handful of expiring .com domains that already read like serious businesses.

I focus on two types of names:

1) Exact-match domains  

Names that say exactly what the business does, for example: MiamiAutos (dot) com and LocalElectrician (dot) com  

2) Brandable domains with an obvious use  

Names that sound like a company from day one, while still being clear about what they do, for example: NextLoan (dot) com and SimpleBankruptcy (dot) com  

This is for founders, builders, and entrepreneurs who are actively looking for their next business and like the idea of letting the right domain be the starting point.

The daily email is free and takes about 30 seconds to read.

If you want a steady stream of .coms that already look and feel like real businesses, I’ll drop the link in the comments…

taplio

The Battle

Alex M H Smith

John Harrison

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreAlex M H Smith's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJohn Harrison's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Alex M H Smith

John Harrison

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Alex M H Smith's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJohn Harrison's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAlex M H Smith's LinkedIn Performance