Angus Certified #022
Angus Certified #022
Why your company needs a strategic narrative.
Hey there.
Welcome to the final (final) Angus Certified of 2023. Chances are that you have heard the words ‘vision,’ ‘mission,’ ‘boilerplate,’ and ‘positioning’ before, especially in a marketing setting.
But without actually defining them, explaining the role they play, why they matter, and how to go about creating (and sustaining) them, these words can quickly fall into the “fluff” category of marketing.
To create more structure and tangibility to them, and ultimately more value to the companies I help, I like to gather them together into a concise one-page document that is called a strategic narrative (credit to Andy Raskin, who has made a career out of doing this with CEOs and has been a tremendous resource for me as I help early-stage companies to best position themselves).
I have worked with lots of great marketers, founders, and other agencies, and have encountered many different definitions and approaches when it comes to these foundational brand marketing elements. My first reaction is often to recoil when I see “brand exploration” on an agency’s initial scope of work, but this work matters - if it is done right.
I do my very best to keep my marketing fluff-free (TM pending) and have seen a great strategic narrative help a company to raise money, grow its business, and recruit great people. Thanks for reading and following along this year.
Happy Holidays and here’s to a great 2024 filled with lower interest rates.
Jeff
Creating your strategic narrative
As with most of my writing and marketing, I have learned and borrowed heavily from several great marketers, including April Dunford and the aforementioned Andy Raskin (more below).
But first, here are the definitions I use for these foundational marketing elements that comprise the strategic narrative:
Vision statement:
What does the world look like in 10 years if your company is a massive success? What impact have you had? A vision statement should be lofty, aspirational, and bold. It does not need to be unique to your company, and can be a bit vague and general. Without getting too prescriptive, it should be shorter than your mission statement.
Mission statement:
What are you doing over the next 1-3 years to get closer to realizing the above vision? Generally speaking, the earlier-stage your company, the more descriptive your mission statement can and should be. You need to define your market (whether you are creating a new one or entering an existing one as a disruptor), who you are for/not for, and what you actually do. Ideally in clear and concise language with no sales buzzwords (avoid using revolutionary, game-changing, best-in-class, and so on).
Boilerplate:
This is the 4-6 sentence “about us” elevator pitch that lives at the end of a press release. It should include your vision and mission, and more information about your company - list our your customers, investors, and go into greater detail on what you actually do.
You will notice with companies that boilerplate positioning evolves and changes quite a bit over time. I have found it to be a valuable reverse-engineering exercise to go back through a successful company’s past releases to see how its positioning has evolved through growth/funding rounds.
Other elements can go into a strategic narrative deliverable, including a positioning statement (more of a direct sales pitch), taglines to use, and an internal glossary of words and terms to use/not use (lululemon Founder Chip Wilson credits a lot of his success to this act of ‘linguistic abstraction,’ or changing words and terms slightly to give some ownership over them). But the focus is on the core elements today: vision, mission, and boilerplate.
I have developed enough conviction over the past decade-ish (getting close to dropping the ish) in the weeds of the startup world to know that this needs to be a requirement. The exercise doesn’t need to take focus away from the important money-making and fundraising activities, but it should be approached with commitment from the leadership team and shared, understood, and agreed upon by the entire core team. And ideally, it should be revisited every quarter, especially in the early days.
There is no fluff to this. Unless your product is absolutely incredible and growing organically, make this a priority. Documenting and sharing your positioning and narrative has a significant role to play in commercial success, and, perhaps most importantly, internal culture (recruiting, motivating, and keeping great people, which I’d argue is perhaps the most important thing for any early-stage company these days).
Resources to check out:
I mentioned Andy Raskin and April Dunford as two of my major influences above. Here is more of their work if you are interested.
The power of strategic narrative:
This interview with Andy Raskin goes into detail on his definition of a strategic narrative, which is where I first came across the phrasing. It resonates with me because it ties the science (strategic) and art (narrative) of business together so perfectly.
Positioning vs. Strategy vs. Vision
I have shared this one before from April Dunford. A must-read for startups on how these things work together and how to create and manage them over time.
Thanks for reading.