Simplicity gets implemented
Brands love complexity.
Complex pricing models. Complex funnels. Complex frameworks. Complex org charts. Complex customer journeys. Complex slide decks. Complex strategy documents.
"Complex" is almost shorthand for "I spent more time on it, therefore it's better."
French philosopher Blaise Pascal famously once wrote, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."
The real world doesn't reward complexity.
Reality rewards implementation.
And implementation likes simplicity.
Resisting the puzzle
Most businesses aren't suffering from a lack of information,
any more than a jigsaw puzzle suffers from a lack of pieces.
They're suffering from an inability to act on the information they already have.
They haven't completed the puzzle yet.
And puzzles are hard.
When strategies are complex, those involved in creating it feel clever, their higher-ups feel they got their money's worth, peers and subordinates feel overwhelmed, and the whole thing is reduced to intellectual entertainment.
It's easier to create verbose, complex documents that imply hard work has been done, than to dig deeper for the real work to be done, then make that very easy for everyone to understand and implement.
(Much easier.)
This is why strategy has a reputation for being documents teams might refer to sometimes while doing other things, rather than the cornerstone of everything teams do together, pivotal to their continued growth and success.
StrategyComics are designed to solve the puzzle by using 1:1 coaching sessions to extract all the puzzle pieces, then assemble them on your behalf between sessions.
Now the hard part is done, and everyone can focus on executing the completed picture.
Most strategy dies during handoff
What's the next step after producing a complex, longform strategy document?
That's right: absolutely nothing. Only those who created it understand it, and given a few months, they'll forget too. It's not used because it's not understood. It's not updated because it's not used. Before long, it's forgotten about entirely.
Everyone knows someone who thought Uber was originally their idea. Not many know someone who had the idea, made it simple enough for a whole team to both understand and execute against, then turn it into a $150B company.
It doesn't matter if your goal is a $150B company or a small, resilient, long-term mom 'n' pop store. Both require a strategy to move in the right direction.
Good strategies make that more likely than bad ones.
But good, complex ones never really get off the ground.
Good, simple strategies are worth executing and get executed.
Simplicity removes hiding places
How do you know if your marketing is working?
If your marketing team increases MQLs, but close rates decline because lead quality is down… is your marketing working?
If your post-sale team's new referral system creates new MQLs, but SDRs take the credit despite flat reception… is your marketing working?
When things are so complex that everyone focuses on their own little piece of the puzzle just to make sense of what they do… is your marketing working?
It's tough to answer. Everyone defines success differently, and none of the definitions can truly answer whether or not marketing — all of it — is working.
We need everyone defining success the same way. For things to be simple enough that everyone can easily remember the entire plan regardless of their role, and how their actions contribute to the common goal.
No more places to hide. Everyone measured on their ability to execute the same plan. No blame games, no "that's not my job" just one team, with one plan, and one goal.
StrategyComics put the entire buyer experience into one plan, one document, then make it simple to understand thanks to the comic book delivery model.
We all struggle to read through documents sometimes.
But nobody struggles to read a comic on company time.