Who says your strategy needs to be heavily documented? Try doing it in 6 sentences for greater effect.
Here is a little gem I recently rediscovered and one of the many notebooks that are a key part of my reflective and reflexive practice. The source is Jay Conrad Levinson, and my notes say it comes from something he wrote in in Entrepreneur, that was then quoted in Communication Briefings, Volume 14 number 2, page four, December 1994
I have tried to find the original source, but it appears not to be anywhere on the Internet, so I suspect it was from a print newsletter. Given that it was 1994 that is not surprising. Levinson was known as a guru of Guerrilla Marketing – and his work can be found here: https://strategiesforinfluence.com/jay-conrad-levinson-guerrilla-marketing/
The gem I rediscovered is about bringing clarity, precision, conciseness and parsimony to your stated strategies. Levinson used an example from advertising to explain this.
To make sure your advertising as a clear purpose, state your strategy in six sentences.
- Prime purpose. “The purpose of rainbow tours ads is to get people to call and write for a free video brochure.”
- Prime benefit. “We will stress the unique and exciting places our customers can visit.”
- Secondary benefits. “We will also stress the convenience and economy of our tours and the skill of our tour guides.”
- Target audience. “We will aim our ads at adventurous male and female singles and couples, 21 to 34, who can afford our tours.”
- Audience reaction. “We expect our audience to call or write to request our video brochure.”
- Company personality. “Our ads will reflect our innovation, excitement, conscientiousness – and our warm, caring attitude toward all customers.”
I will own up to not being guilty of actually having followed these rules since 1994. I lost the idea in my notebook. And, continuing with the honesty, when I look back over the last 25 years I have probably been guilty of a common organisational sin – that I’ve been over-planned and under-delivered.
A great deal of thought needs to go into your strategy if you are to capture it in 6 sentences. It’s not an easy task, and certainly not as easy as writing the long, verbose omnibuses that often masquerade as a strategy. It requires a depth of understanding that can be challenging, particularly in our seemingly time poor work environments.
But I can’t help think of how much more effective I might have been if I had used a 6-sentence strategy approach to my work?
