Strategy is about asking the right questions

An essential part of strategy is about asking the right questions.

Brand Strategy is very much about being able to draw out authentic and honest answers.

Heather Briggs and I have collaborated for many years through Now Impact Studio and King Street Media. We had a live discussion about branding and crafting your unique voice. She shared a bit of the process which includes asking the right questions.

We often start with big picture questions like this:

Why do we do this work?
Why are we doing what we’re doing?
What is your purpose?

This is of course a huge and sometimes complex conversation to have at a broad level. It can also be very personal if you’re a one-person business or organization.

As brand strategists who have collaborated for years, Heather and I are aligned with Simon Sinek’s Start With Why.

“When you start up, I think a big part of strategy is allowing yourself to go big picture and to take ourselves out of the details enough to start to get traction with some of our thinking. So asking something like why do I do what I do? Or why am I doing this beyond making money?”

Why is this important? Often, entrepreneurs, operators and organizations get caught up in the daily details or numbers.

“Stripping out the business piece and seeing it really aspirational. That’s super important to getting ourselves into that sort of more blue sky creative thinking.”

What is your vision? What are some of your goals?

“Whether you’ve got a beautifully crafted vision statement yet or you just want to be able to at least identify where we’re going. Not too short term but aspirationally 10 years from now, if your dream comes true, what does the business or organization look like? How is it represented out in the market?”