A Cure for Strategic Overload

After the BookThinkers LIVE conference in Boston last weekend, I boarded Southwest flight 754 to return to St. Louis, opened my notebook, and began to read.

Soon after, my head began to spin.

Pages and pages and pages of notes. Advice for authors, podcasters, and other creators — delivered by 37 speakers and 25 vendors.

Hundreds of tips and suggestions. Lots of solid stuff. Lots of contradictory stuff.

One guy told us how to get on the New York Times Bestseller List. Another said, don’t bother. The list is a scam and not worth the effort.

One expert encouraged us to be as authentic and human as possible. Another encouraged us to use AI to clone ourselves and create Hollywood-style promotional videos.

On page 17 of my notebook: “Don’t try to sell your services on social. Use social to build your list and sell with email.”

On page 86: “You CAN sell services on social.”

Page 16: Use Meta ads to attract leads.

Page 63: Use YouTube ads to attract leads.

Page 12: Build a following and convert sales with free webinars.

Page 116: Paid events convert better than free webinars.

I shut the notebook and shut my eyes. I took a deep breath and remembered what BookThinkers Founder/CEO Nick Hutchinson said during the event: Conflicting viewpoints are good. He welcomes them.

I agree with Nick. But I also wonder about the 400+ people who attended the event. I wonder what they’re thinking.

Maybe this…

“What now?! Where do I begin!?”

Sound familiar?

“What now?! Where do I begin!?” It’s the entrepreneur’s refrain. It’s the disease that ails you: Strategic overload.

So many strategies and tactics. So little time. Mountains and mountains and mountains of advice with no clear roadmap to guide you through the range. No clear direction on which mountains to summit and which ones to avoid.

When I told one of my mentors that I was going to deliver “STRATEGY, TECH, and TEAM” as the core offer in my business, he pushed back: “People aren’t looking for strategy. They already have strategies. They just want someone to implement.”

He’s right about the “implement” part. And he’s right about “already have strategies.”

You have plenty of strategies. You’ve taken courses, read books, and attended conferences. You have notebooks like mine overflowing with strategies.

But there’s a Grand-Canyon-sized difference between a notebook full of suggested strategies, and a strategic blueprint that answers, “What now?! Where do I begin!?”

That notebook is a ball and chain. The strategic blueprint is a step-by-step roadmap that sets you free to build your business. It gives you the clarity and confidence to implement and achieve business success.

Nick was right to invite speakers and vendors with conflicting viewpoints because there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all business strategy. Different solutions fit different businesses.

Every strategic blueprint I develop for my clients is different. Different blueprints for different businesses that reflect different goals, different resources, different audiences, different services.

If you’d like such a blueprint, book a complimentary 1:1 Plan-to-Prosper session with me.

In that session, we’ll review YOUR business (marketing assets, audience, current funnel, current bottlenecks), discuss what’s working and what’s not, and map out a custom Plan to Prosper Blueprint, a roadmap (customized for YOU) that outlines the right strategies, tech, and team to make growth simpler and faster.

If “What now?! Where do I begin!?” rings a bell, book the session now.