Why I Don’t Do (Just) Strat Plans Anymore

A confession - I put wayyyy too much time into a proposal for a strategic plan for a provincial non-profit organization last summer.  We're talking 15ish hours..

You see, I was honoured to be tapped on the shoulder for the work and I felt a lot of alignment after having an intro call with the Executive Director.

Guess what happened?  I didn’t get it.

I’m 90% sure that I know who did get the work (yay! I’m petty lol!), but here’s why that doesn’t worry me at all. 

✅ Anyone with access to AI can draft up a really pretty strat plan.  

✅ They can use fancy terms, talk about up-to-date industry research and do stuff that, honestly, creates a lot of value for an organization.

I don’t want to de-value any of that - it’s good, important work.

But most organizations and businesses take that $20k strat plan and it just sits ‘on the shelf’.  Not ideal.

And that's why my team and I no longer work with clients on one-off strat plans anymore.  

Why have we taken this somewhat inflexible stance?  

Because when someone asks me for a strat plan, what they’re really asking is: 

1 - can you help us figure out what we really want to achieve or create create? (goal definition)

2 - can you make a plan to get us from where we are to where we want to be? (roadmap)

3 - can you actually take us from A to B in a reasonable length of time? (execution support)

And you know what even the best strat plans does?  It ticks off number 1.  Some strat plans have work plans so #2 is covered or partially covered too.  

But no one outside of a management consulting firm like mine has the subject matter expertise in strategy, finances and operations to actually take that strategic plan and work alongside you and your team to execute and implement it.  Aka actually get you from where you are to where you want to be.

I know you (well, at least I feel like I do…)

➡️ You don’t have 10hrs / week to work “on” your biz.  

➡️ You probably don’t even know what you’d do in those 10hrs if you did lol.  

➡️ You don’t have team members with the financial or operational expertise to take lofty goals and figure out the 1-2-3 steps of who’s going to do X on Y date.

And you most likely have a bit of extra cash and know full well that if you invest with me, you’ll probably at least double that investment (or more) if you commit to the process and follow the advice I’m giving you. 

So, sure, I didn’t get the job with the NPO.  But I did end 2024 with some of my highest cash months ever.  

And who knows… maybe I’ll follow up with that organization now with a “U up?” text (haha) because I can almost bet this organization still needs help implementing their shiny new strat plan.