Strategy
7 min read
The three-line strategy: a test for any plan
If a strategy cannot be written in three lines, it is not a strategy yet. Here is the test we use on every plan we are shown.
Nora Aldermere
Founding partner
Most plans we read run to forty pages. Most of them contain no decision. A strategy is a choice about where you will play and what you will not do, and a choice fits in three lines.
Line one: who you serve
Name the customer in a way that would let a stranger tell whether they are one. “Small businesses” fails. “Independent grocers with three to six shops” passes.
Line two: what you do for them
Say the one thing you do better than the alternatives, and say what they would otherwise have to do instead.
Line three: what you will not do
This is the line people skip, and it is the one that matters. A plan with no exclusions has not chosen anything.
How to use it
Write the three lines before the next planning meeting and hand them out. If the room cannot agree on them in twenty minutes, you have found the real work.
The Aldermere Letter
One essay a month, short enough to read on the train.
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