If business feels hard right now, please listen carefully (strategy pro advice)

Executive Summary

Alex M. H. Smith argues that many businesses are struggling because markets have changed: demand is weaker, competition is greater, and competitors can copy successful ideas faster. Rather than responding with more tactics or blaming external forces, companies should rethink how they set goals, create demand, differentiate themselves, prove credibility, tell their story, and sustain a market position.

Six Strategic Models

1. Become a Different Person

• Set a nonlinear goal: an ambition you do not yet know how to achieve. Unlike a linear goal—such as increasing income by 15% through incremental improvements—a nonlinear goal forces you to question assumptions and develop new capabilities.
• Choose and publish a three-year goal that cannot be reached by simply maintaining the status quo.
• The examples of 1,500% or 15,000% income growth are illustrative stretch ambitions, not forecasts or recommended targets for every business.

2. Match Sales and Marketing to What Drives Desire

Use a matrix of B2B vs. B2C and discretionary vs. non-discretionary purchases. Buyers’ motivations vary by category, so generic advice about ideal customer profiles and “pain points” may not apply.

• Non-discretionary B2B: Buyers prioritize compliance and confidence that a supplier understands the specific requirement and can handle it reliably. Examples include cybersecurity, auditing, litigation, and payroll.
• Non-discretionary B2C: Buyers prioritize help and trust, such as availability, local presence, findability, and confidence in the provider. Examples include plumbing and electrical work.
• Discretionary B2C: Desire is driven by identity—how a product or service helps people express or approach an idealized version of themselves. Examples include restaurants, travel, fashion, and gyms.
• Discretionary B2B: Buyers need belief in the seller’s leadership and authority. Examples include branding studios, executive coaching, automation software, and strategy consulting. Credibility may come before the buyer defines the problem.

3. Build a Moat Through Contrarian Value

Smith says few companies possess a true moat, and fast imitation has made short-lived advantages less useful. His proposed approach is contrarian value: offer something that directly conflicts with what competitors prioritize.

1. Identify something competitors in your category value or insist on.
2. Deliberately deprioritize—or even challenge—it.
3. Use that choice to unlock a different form of value for customers.

Look for areas where your business is already inconsistent or underinvested. Ask whether a limitation—such as not offering certain features, serving certain regions, or using certain channels—could enable a more valuable alternative.

Example: Savannah Bananas. Instead of concentrating resources on winning games like conventional baseball teams, the team prioritized the fan experience. Smith’s argument is that competitors would struggle to copy this without diverting resources from their own priority of winning.

4. Prove What Cannot Be Faked

Smith argues that AI makes it easy to create a convincing appearance of expertise, scale, or capability, so claims and polished websites carry less weight on their own.

He identifies nine credibility signals:

1. Glory: Fame or broad recognition.
2. Proven achievements: Verifiable results, not just claims.
3. Associations: Credible clients, partners, or media coverage.
4. Understanding: Insight that makes customers feel genuinely understood.
5. “Expensive alarm system”: Visible investment, such as major advertising or impressive premises.
6. Relationships: Trusted networks and presence in relevant circles.
7. Skill: Distinctive capability, judgment, and presentation.
8. Demonstration: Showing the work in a compelling way.
9. Physicality: Meaningful offline presence.

Action: Choose the three signals your business can credibly strengthen and focus on them. Smith suggests that demonstrating three may be enough to create a persuasive case.

5. Turn the Strategy into a Company Story

A clear narrative can attract attention from employees, partners, industry peers, the press, and potential investors—not only customers.

Build the story around:

1. Goal: What significant outcome are you pursuing?
2. Origin: Where did the company start?
3. Industry insight: What did you notice that seemed wrong or irrational?
4. Decision: What did you choose to do differently?
5. Customer value: Why does that change matter to customers?
6. Wider impact: If successful in five or ten years, how would the industry, culture, or world be different?

Smith presents the leader’s role as making this strategy and narrative compelling, while emphasizing that the company must have substantive strategic choices behind the story.

6. Keep Moving to Stand Still

A market position must be continually reinforced as competitors, markets, and culture change. Sustainable advantage comes from deepening a distinctive position over time, not chasing every new idea or technology.

Quarterly strategy review playbook: Hold an all-day off-site every three months and discuss:

1. What did we do in the last quarter to advance or deepen the strategy?
2. What did we learn, and what should change?
3. What changed in the category that affects how we execute?
4. What changed in the culture that affects how we execute?
5. What will we do in the next quarter to advance the strategy?

Repeat the cycle consistently over multiple years to build a more distinctive position.

Examples: Smith uses IKEA to illustrate how a strong market position can remain defensible even after technical advantages fade, and Nike to illustrate the continual renewal of a long-standing position around elite athletic ambition.

Practical Takeaways and Metrics

• Set a published three-year nonlinear goal that requires more than incremental improvement.
• Diagnose the business using the four-part desire matrix before applying sales or marketing advice.
• Identify a possible contrarian value proposition by examining what the business could stop prioritizing or do differently from category norms.
• Select and strengthen three of the nine hard-to-fake credibility signals.
• Write a company narrative that connects the ambition, origin, industry insight, strategic choice, customer benefit, and long-term impact.
• Establish quarterly, all-day strategy reviews and maintain the cycle over several years.
• The video gives no revenue, margin, CAC, LTV, churn, or conversion benchmarks. Its quantitative examples are a 15% linear income goal, illustrative 1,500% and 15,000% nonlinear goals, a three-year goal horizon, five- and ten-year impact questions, and quarterly review intervals.

Presenter and Cited Examples

• Presenter: Alex M. H. Smith says he has worked as a strategy consultant for 15 years and with brands including Porsche, TikTok, and Procter & Gamble. He also identifies himself as the author of No Bullshit Strategy.
• Business examples cited: Savannah Bananas, IKEA, and Nike.