Most strategy is, unfortunately, bullshit.

Complicated.
Dense.
Timid.

And more concerned with "optimisation" and "efficiency" than what really matters:

-> Making a big move that's going to change the game.

That's real strategy.

The kind that builds categories of one.
Inspires teams.
Locks-in customers.
Is written about in books.
Turns executives into legends.

...and frankly turns our boring business lives into a true adventure.

(Because I don't know about you, but I'm not here to shuffle papers until I die)

No Bullshit Strategy is how you do it.

If you want to be able to:

- Read markets like a book
- Conjure innovations nobody saw coming
- Build companies with no competitors
- Inspire teams to follow you into the unknown

...then you're in the right place.

Start here 👇

To work with me to develop a strategy like this, or embed these skills into your organisation, learn more here:

👉 www.basicarts.org/work-with-alex/

To get my ultimate strategy document template (that forces you to think the right way), totally free, grab it here:

👉 www.basicarts.org/template

To read No Bullshit Strategy, that helps you master these skills for the price of a cocktail, and which is passed around in the halls of many of the world's top brands:

👉 Go wherever you get your books

For video deep dives on these topics, check out my YouTube:

👉 youtube.com/alexmhsmith

And if you're a small business or want to learn these techniques yourself (or to use on your clients - I don't mind!), then you've gotta see this:

👉 www.strategyshortcutsystem.com

Business is an adventure.
Strategy is the map.

Let’s set out.

Alex

Alex M H Smith

This isn't a post about AI.

This is a post about you.

Moreover, it's a post about how your brain solves problems - a process that's more weird than you think.

It works for me, hope it works for you too.
__

This idea first appeared in richer detail on my newsletter, The Hidden Path.

To subscribe for free, go here: https://lnkd.in/eJSPsGUf

No Bullsh*t Strategy | Courage, meaning, and creation in business | Speaker | Author

When I do (and don't) use AI

A "leader" is not just "a senior person in a business".

It's also not someone who's in charge of people.
Or someone with a team.

--- It's actually something very specific - and rare.

Are you one? The slides reveal all...

Hope you enjoy.

(and if you want to actually lead, start here: https://lnkd.in/eJSPsGUf )

Are you a leader or a manager?

A little while ago, a woman was asking me for advice regarding her small chain of baby care stores.

(Is that what you call them? Baby care? Baby equipment? Anyway you know, prams, bottles, and stuff)

So I asked her the first obvious question:

"Well, what makes you different?"

She thought for a while, and ultimately landed on the ultimate get-out-clause of differentiation:

"It would have to be our customer service!"

OK, cool, maybe that's true. So I probed a bit deeper, and asked:

"What exactly do you do to have such good customer service?"

At this there was silence. It took her a while to even process the idea that in order to have "exceptional" customer service, you must first DO something execeptional to create it. Otherwise, it's physically impossible, isn't it?

(Note that almost every business I speak to misses this point - she was in great company)

I gave an example:

"Well, for instance do you only shop staff who have been parents already? If you did, then for sure they would be able to provide deeper and more empathetic service than other stores, right?"

But no, she didn't do this. Her hiring practices were normal.

Eventually we established that there wasn't anything in particular that made it special - it just sort of "was" because she believed it to be true.

And this is true of almost EVERY claim EVERY business makes.

And this is why they find sales so difficult.

Because claims don't sell.
Facts sell.

Facts that make the claim self-evident.

Imagine if she did only hire people who'd already had kids. Wouldn't that be a cool story? Wouldn't that provide substance to her claims? Wouldn't that make you want to go to her store to buy your car seat or whatever?

For sure it would.

So your job is simple: create some facts.

Do some undeniable things, just like this, that make your claims superfluous. Creative, thoughtful, surprising things your competitors wouldn't do.

And then watch how much easier it becomes.

(P.S. this taks becomes a lot easier with this: www.basicarts.org/toolkit )

Facts not claims

Strange isn't it:

- Every company claims they're different.
- But we all know that very few truly are.

How is this possible?

Is it delusion?
Is it lies?

No, actually it's more complicated than that. It's a phenomenon we might call "fake differentiation".

And it's probably infecting your company right now.

Read on to spot it instantly.
__

This post is 100% AI-free.

And so is my weekly newsletter on bold strategic thinking, The Hidden Path.

Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/eJSPsGUf

Fake differentiation is everywhere

Most strategy is bullshit.

Quite literally.

Bullshit means “a bunch of fancy words which actually mean nothing at all”, and that sure does describe most strategy you come across.

Fortunately there’s a remedy: the three exercises in these slides.

Check them out, and see how your business stacks up.

__

P.S. These are the kinds of strategy hacks I’m releasing every week in my newsletter, The Hidden Path.

Join 28,000 other creative leaders right here: https://lnkd.in/eJSPsGUf

How you can tell if a strategy is actually bullshit

I heard Roger Martin say that he'd never seen any course or program that was dedicated to creating novel hypotheses.

A great point - and a pretty big problem given that this is how all REAL strategy starts.

So I decided to churn out 5 easy methods for doing just that.

Not saying the ideas will be "right".

But they will be "novel".

And that, ultimately, is what really counts.

___

There's plenty more where this came from via my newsletter that teaches entrepreneurial strategic thinking.

Subscribe for free, here: https://lnkd.in/eJSPsGUf

Helping Agency Owners & B2B Founders close 2-10 clients on Linkedin in the next 180 days (Or You Don't Pay).

I help founders turn Linkedin into a consistent lead-gen channel. 2M+ b2b revenue generated, case studies attached below.

Naim Ahmed

I worked with a Director at Gong ($4.7 Billion Company) to level up his Linkedin strategy...

I broke down every strategy we discussed in a 20 page guide.

• What the top 1% of founder brands do differently
• $2.5M+ worth of insights from Linkedin campaigns
• The exact DM funnel that books 1–3 calls a day
• How we've generated over 15M views for clients

Perfect for any founder/exec ready to turn Linkedin into revenue.

Want access to the guide?

Comment "strategy" and I'll send it over.

P.S. Make sure we're connected so I can DM you.

Clients pay me $2500+ to get inbounds on Linkedin. Here's one of our strategies which works like CRAZY.

I call it "Inbound leads by FORCE".

First come up with a list of 100 dream prospects.

Then, figure out what value you can provide for free.

Examples:

- If you build landing pages -> Landing page re-design

- If you do Youtube -> YT video (edit, thumbnails)

- If you do email -> Welcome email re-design

Create the free value and turn it into a Linkedin post, but make sure you TAG the prospect.

They'll get the notification and see what you created.

This starts conversations, builds awareness and allows you to prove your skill as you're leading with value.

Try it.

You're leaving $10,000-$20000 on the table every month on Linkedin if you don't do this:

Hear me out, most of your clients have Linkedin profiles which means they have built some level of network here of people that know, like and trust them.

Imagine for a second if...

These clients were to vouch for YOU on their page and tag YOU in a Linkedin post where they talk about how you helped them.

I guarantee you'd have 1-2 people from their network reaching out and asking for your help too.

These will be WARM  lay-up deals.

Because, they are built on trust.

With my clients we don't wait for these testimonials.

We engineer them.

For example, with my client Noah one of the first things we're doing is:

. Systemising this process 
. Making the ask frictionless 
. Drafting shout-out posts for clients in advance

One good shout-out, from the right person can outperform 100 cold DMs.

P.S. P.S. Want me to scale your Linkedin for a week at no cost? Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eaamzJyq

Trust in the age of AI is COOKED.

You see, occasionally I'll share a short client video testimonial in the DMs when speaking to a prospect.

It's a cool way for me to share my value without having to do any convincing.

The video does the convincing for me (works great btw).

HOWEVER, this time I sent it through and the reply was:

"looks like AI"

It wasn't lol.

And, eventually the prospect agreed it wasn't and we laughed about it.

But, it was still pretty wild to see how low trust is that even video testimonials are met with skepticism.

Interesting times.

We've been helping Umair scale his agency on Linkedin using this strategy (steal it):

Turn top case-studies into relevant prospect lists.

So, let's say he helped a 2M/ARR cat food brand.

We'd build lists of other brands doing the same thing.

Similar:

. Products
. Market
. Annual revenue
. Location

Now, we Identify every decision maker in these companies. 

Not just the founder...

But even the CMO, head of retention, VP ecom etc.

Then, write relevant DMs to each leading with value.

The key here though isn't the script, it's the case study.

We're reaching out to people we KNOW we can help and leading with RELEVANT proof.

This instantly builds more trust.

Speed to trust is EVERYTHING in outbound.

P.S. Want me to write your content for free? Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eaamzJyq

This little shift helped my client book 3x more calls from Linkedin.

When we started working together he told me his DMs weren't getting any responses.

Which was weird because the DM’s weren’t bad at all.

Not perfect, but not bad.

I asked him “Who are you sending these DMs to?”

Apparently, he had access to this elite list of prospects he bought from a database.

HMMMM.

Problem was this list had ONE huge issue.

The prospects on the list were not active on Linkedin.

So, he was sending connections and messages to people that never log in to the app.

It doesn't matter how qualified a list is, if they're not active on the platform, it means nothing.

That's why this filter on Sales Nav (below) is so critical.

It makes sure you only connect and write DMs to prospects that have posted on Linkedin in the last 30 days.

This will automatically increase your connection acceptance and response rate without making any changes to your DMs.

Try it.

Nazar Stefan runs a multi 6-figure paid ads agency for DTC brands. After a quick chat, I came up with 3 ways he can use Linkedin to scale to 1M ARR:

1. Share proof of work

Every week share ad creatives the team have built you're proud of. This is your proof of work. Write about the strategy behind them and the results they're getting.

If clients are okay being public, regularly mention the work you're doing for them with VISUAL examples. Show prospects you do great work for happy clients.

2. Creative breakdowns

Every week break down other brands’ creatives. When you see one that catches your eye, repost it and share your expert opinion.

Why did it work? What did you like? What could have been better?

Be seen as THE authority in your space.

3. Signal led-outreach

Implement our social selling system to identify any ideal prospects that have engaged on your content (or your competitors content) & reach out with a value-driven messaging which is hard to ignore. Send 20-30 messages a day, book 1-5 calls every week.

-

P.S. Wanna book qualified meetings every week on Linkedin? DM me "calls" and I'll show you how I can help.

If you REALLY want inbound leads on Linkedin, read this:

STOP HIDING YOUR WORK.

If you do creatives for e-com brands.

post the creatives you're proud of.

If you write emails for SaaS.

show us some email designs/copy.

If you do conversion rate optimzation

show us some recent split test wins.

Prospects with money don't care about tactics.

They want to SEE you're good at what you do.

Show them.

I showed a b2b founder that targets 5-10M+ companies how to use Sales Nav to book warm meetings in under 14 days. 

Filters you need:

. "Connections of" current/past clients
. Less than 1 year in current role (optional)

1/ Connections of current/past clients

Sales navigator allows you to see everyone who is a "connection of" your current/past clients. A lot of these people will also be ideal prospects. You can leverage this mutual connection to reach out to them with a highly relevant message (referencing your mutual connection) OR ask your client to make an intro for you.

GOLD^.

2. Less than 1 year in current role:

C-Suites of big companies have something to prove in their first year. That makes them more likely to respond and move forward on a deal if you can clearly show your value.

-

P.S. if you’re a b2b founder and you want me to personally help you book more calls on LinkedIn. DM me “calls” and I’ll let you know if I can help.

taplio

The Battle

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Naim Ahmed

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The Battle

Alex M H Smith

Naim Ahmed

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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

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Performance ScoreAlex M H Smith's LinkedIn Performance