Strategy

Most founders I work with don't have a strategy problem. They have a strategy avoidance problem.

They've got goals — twelve-month goals, revenue numbers, a vision they can point at. And then they go straight to doing. Lists of tasks, a packed calendar, a team running flat out. Plenty of motion. What's missing is the thing in between: the deliberate choice about how they're going to get there. Sun Tzu said it cleaner than I ever will — "strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory; tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Most businesses are living in that second half. Loud, busy, and quietly losing.

Strategy is the bridge between your goals and your daily execution. It sits as the second move in the Planning stage of The Success Framework, directly after Goals — because until you know where you're headed, you've got nothing to strategise toward.

What strategy actually is

Here's the definition I keep coming back to: a strategy is the essential course of action you'll take to achieve a goal. It's the approach. The lane. The thing you've decided to channel your effort, your attention and your money into — and, just as importantly, the things you've decided not to.

That last part is what makes strategy hard, and why people skip it. Strategy is a choice, and every real choice closes doors. Picking a direction means picking a few bets and leaving the rest on the table. If your "strategy" still has room for everything, it isn't one yet.

Let me make it concrete. People say "marketing is our strategy." Marketing isn't a strategy — it's a business function, something every business does. Online marketing might be a strategy. Social media marketing might be a strategy. The difference is specificity. A strategy names a direction clearly enough that you could actually commit to it, and clear enough that you could explain why you chose it over the obvious alternatives.

Where to play, and how to win

When I run founders through this section, I get them to hold one thing front of mind — the twelve-month goals, not the ten-year fantasy. This isn't about the far horizon. This is about the short term: what's the essential course of action that moves you toward the goal you've set for the year?

For each goal, you name the strategies. The accepted approaches. The ways you genuinely believe you'll succeed. And I push people to mine their own history here — what's worked before, what hasn't, what new approach the moment is asking for. You're not inventing strategy from a blank page; you're choosing it from experience and intent.

Pick the bet that moves the most

This is where most people get it wrong, so I'll be blunt about it. You'll end up with a handful of strategies, and the instinct is to spread yourself across all of them evenly. Don't. That's how you end up doing six things at half-strength and winning at none.

The discipline is focus. Look at your list and ask one question: which of these will generate the most momentum toward my goals? Which one realises the largest share of what I'm chasing — and, if we're being honest and tactical, which one drives the most immediate revenue? Find your top one or two. Those are the bets you back hard.

Then you sharpen them. A heading like "social media marketing" isn't enough — you elaborate it into a real, defined strategy: using Instagram, Facebook and short-form video to drive attention and share the culture of the business with the people you want to reach. Now it's articulated clearly enough to commit to, and clearly enough to build from.

Strategy sets the direction — Tactics do the work

Strategy is the where to play and how to win. It's the choice, the focus, the direction. What it deliberately leaves alone is the execution — the concrete actions, the decomposition, the things you'll actually do week to week. That's the partner section: Tactics. Once your highest-value strategy is named and sharpened, Tactics breaks it down into the courses of action that turn the bet into movement on the ground.

Get the strategy right first, though. Tactics built on a vague strategy are just busywork with better branding.

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If you've done the work on your Values, Purpose, Vision and Goals, you've already earned the right to strategise — you know where you're going, so now you can choose how. If you want a hand pressure-testing your strategy, finding the one bet that actually moves the needle, and making the hard cuts that focus does, that's the kind of thinking I do with founders every week.

Join the list and I'll walk you through The Success Framework one section at a time — strategy included.