Espresso: Alex Smith, No Bullshit Strategy: The SECRET Link Between Brand Strategy and Storytelling ITSU and Apple

0:08And I would love to know where does storytelling fit into strategy? what's the relationship all right well you're playing right into my hands here because this is something i've been thinking so much about um in the last few months and actually to quite an extreme degree that's why we do these mate a degree that's so extreme that and i'll i'll explain this it's so extreme that i would go to the i would almost take it to the point where what the strategy is actually doesn't really matter provided that to use your language the story is good enough or that it's um that it's charismatic enough and you give that you gave that steve that steve jobs quote and i'll give you i'll one-up you with another quote that i heard the other day which i love from david perel which is david perel he's this guy he's all about writing online that's his sort of shtick you know just writing and he's he's worth following he's one of these sort of like influences that I really get a lot from.

1:12And he said, the world doesn't reward people with the best ideas. The world rewards people who are best at communicating ideas. And I love this idea, this thought that the content of an idea or the content of a strategy is overrated. And what's underrated is how well communicated it is. And when you pull on the thread of this, you can actually get to a point where, and I don't quite believe this, but I definitely think this is half true, that there is actually no such thing as a good idea or a bad idea. All the things that we think are good ideas are actually just well communicated ideas. And all the things that we think are bad ideas are actually just badly communicated ideas.

2:02And what actually happens when these ideas are implemented is essentially a roll of the dice. It's all in the hands of fate. It's too complicated for us to predict. And so obviously loads of quote unquote good ideas fail and also lots of quote unquote bad ideas succeed. And that being the case, it actually does make you wonder, well, were they even good or bad ideas at all? Or was I just seduced into labeling some of the ideas as good because the person who described them to me described them to me in such a skillful way as that they convinced me. Now, bring this back to strategy. And if we say that basically like, you know, sort of what the strategy is, is a bit sort of neither here nor there.

2:45The question is, you know, how much am I able to sell the story to people? Well, a strategy is nothing if it isn't executed, right? A strategy is just a means of provoking action. It's the action that's actually going to bring you results. It's the going out there and doing something that is going to actually give you money. so it stands to reason that the number one um criteria that a strategy must pass is will people take it and do it i don't care about the content i don't care whether it's clever i don't care whether it's backed up by an insight will people take it and do it now if you give people a charismatic sexy irresistible story around the strategy your team let's say and they go out there and bloody do it, that's 90 % of the job.

3:43What actually happens as a result of your actions? Well, who bloody knows, but you didn't know anyway. What actually counts is that they went and did it. So yeah, I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that the content of the strategy doesn't matter. But what I would say is that it matters far less than people think and the narrative or the communication of the strategy matters far more than people think i think the greatest example of this is prime which i know everyone's now post-rationalizing but i don't know too much about it so you can educate well but i mean but i know the vague stuff but it's almost like the the we it's the best best example of we don't know what what's a good idea or a bad idea we only know the way it's communicated and what's happened with prime is the prime is a the prime example of this right so not um and obviously now everyone on linkedin's post rationalizing it but i knew this was coming it's like well you weren't saying that when it launched i could have seen it coming miles off it's like oh go on fucking put your roar out when it actually means something and um and uh but to your point packaging in my again and this is all opinion, so it's like, what's my opinion?

5:01But packaging's in plastic. It's pretty gaudy and gary. The product's no good. Sorry, the product's no good. But it's not that different. Yeah, no, no, not that different. That different, yeah. No good is kind of nebulous. It's not that it's no good. and it is the prime example of it's not the content of the strategy, it's the storytelling and how good that end, persuasive and charismatic that is. So you then add on Logan Paul and KSI, who are two of the greatest storytellers, tell stories for a living through their online media platforms. they then put that in um into kids they they create scarcity meaning it's not everywhere which creates fear and pull in terms of seth godin's spread of the story to the kids who do get their mitts on it have status again the way ideas spread so you have this link of like was prime really that good or do we have really great storytelling you had seth godin's status disaffiliation and fear in terms of spreading the idea.

6:15So it's spread. And then what's happened now is, and what some people have been saying is, you know, kids, what the folly of their strategy was that kids like yo-yos, like it comes and goes. Yeah. And that was something. So now we're actually looking at going, oh yeah, it was a bit shit. Post-rationally, everything's easy post-rational, rationally. um but i think it's a darling example of how important the storytelling and the charisma of the idea and the strategy is versus the actual it's something we probably don't want to um necessarily we want to tell ourselves the strategy was amazing not the charisma of the strategist was do you know what i mean yeah yeah and and look it's um quick one guys Espresso's got a brand new sponsor, Unleashed.

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8:37Number two, if you can tell a convincing story, that actually bodes quite well for the idea. It's a really good way of judging the idea that you can actually spin a yarn about it and that you can actually get people sort of interested in it. It's a really great way to just judge the quality of the thinking. And it also then takes some, it takes a bit of pressure off us thinking that, you know, that we have so much responsibility for the way that things pan out out there in the market, because really, really we don't. The randomness of what happens when an idea is put out into the world, when a business is put out into the market is absolutely gigantic.

9:18And it isn't really a referendum on us what happens with it the only referendum is did you do something what do you mean by referendum so it doesn't really mean that we're sort of stupid if the idea fails or that we're smart if the idea succeeds the only thing that we can really be judged on is did we put something clear and specific and bold out into the world and let it breathe and become what it wanted to become like you know and and the results of that you know if it become if it's a billion dollars it doesn't mean we're a genius and if it's a failure it doesn't mean that we're it doesn't mean that we're stupid because we weren't really in control of any of that anyway the only thing that we're in control of is actually getting some interesting idea out there out there into the world um so i so so i think that's quite freeing and i think it's actually sort of much more and it's a very very unstrategic thing to say because the whole sort of strategy thing is like oh well you know you do a lot of thinking and then you have this really clever idea and because the idea is so clever it's definitely going to work and uh and all the rest of it and the more and more I do it and the more and more I learn about it I actually think that's kind of like a bit of a a bit of a myth and that's why and that's why now I do focus a lot more on the charisma of the idea the storytelling of the idea than I do on let's say the data that's backing up the idea or the information that's gone into it.

10:45Because if these are two levers, right, that you can pull, you're like, okay, I can either have a really clever, intelligent, rigorous, well thought through idea, but that's a bit dry. That's one lever. Or I can have an idea that I farted out in two minutes on the back of a napkin. But when I tell it to people, they're like, oh, yeah, that's cool. That's my other lever. Which of those levers am I backing to work? 100 % is the napkin lever. 100 % is the one with charisma. Because all of the things around that, the ability to persuade, the ability to provoke action, the ability for you to actually have a good time doing it, the ability for the market to understand it, the likelihood that it has differentiation built into it etc etc etc it's got all those things going for it that if the one thing that's missing is the rigor and the and sort of like how how sort of like a robust it is on closer examination i'll take that trade i'll take that trade what's so the example i'm thinking about the charisma of ideas or the charisma of strategy is it soon and what julian metcalf did at pret and and and at it so pret's whole thing was eat fresh uh it's it's his thing is eat beautiful clever it's the one i love eat just eat beautiful but the way so so what what julian did in terms of him being such a brilliant storyteller in telling it at every touch point is at pret the famous one is it doesn't make sense from a P &L but he would say to staff um if you like someone today or you feel like you want to perk up someone's day give them a croissant give them a free coffee it's it's it's it's charismatic storytelling um which doesn't make sense on a P &L what he's and then so and I think that's that's example of that lever that napkin working stronger um and I think what that does we talk a lot about what the strategy does for the consumer, as in what's the point of difference versus the competitor, what's the point of disagreement versus the category.

13:06But what the story does is that actually mobilizes and brings employees together. Yes. And it brings the tribe together who are like, oh, shit. If we work at Pret, we get to deliver this strategy of eat fresh or be fresh. And guess what? We get to give croissants to customers who we like. whereas conversely at Starbucks where man managed I'm just using this example man managed every 10 seconds and we can't do it so I think the storytelling is what mobilizes the employees but then also what he's done at ITS is you walk into the office and he's got one of the first Steve Jobs Mac like prototypes must be worth it's grant tens and tens and tens of grant thousands of pounds but as every employee goes to the lift goes into the lift to go up to the it's to um like reception area they walk past that and it's just a delicious example of the setting the tone setting the storytelling um i'd love to know sorry but just just to pick up on that because it's just a funny one but i want i wanted to get back to your question but on that people you know people forget and this is a really good example of like how is there such thing as a good idea of course the original mac the apple macintosh was a failure it failed right so it was a quote unquote bad idea and what's funny about it is that jobs basically because he was so in love with the fundamental strategy behind that idea which was essentially the blending of the liberal arts with computing which is something that just hadn't been done before.

14:48And he did it with that. And when you say liberal arts, humanities, you know, like artistry, poetry, because he was super into all the kind of like the soft subjects, let's say. And obviously computing was very sort of a hard, particularly at that time, hard mathematical, you know, engineering kind of thing. So for example, he had the idea, the first person had the idea of putting fonts onto a computer. Now we think that it's obvious that you would have different fonts in your WordPress on the computer. But, you know, at the time, that was a really weird, arty-farty idea to bring to the world of computing.

15:25It didn't make sense, but he did it because that's what he was into. He wanted computers to be tools for sort of artistry, not just maths and being a bit reductive, but you get the idea. And that was what the Macintosh was all about. And it failed. It did not work. And he basically held onto that idea for another 15 years, left Apple, came back to Apple. the iMac was the same bloody idea as the Macintosh. And he just basically tried to do the same thing again, the same failed idea he did again, albeit, you know, with newer technology and in a different time period. Oh, and the iMac happened to work.

16:00So like, could, there's a bit more to it than the way I'm telling the story. But broadly speaking, we could say Jobs' core idea that the entirety of Apple as a business, most valuable business ever was built on, is actually an idea that failed when he tried to do it the first time. And then just through sheer bloody mindedness and just because he fancied it and whatever else and he just believed in it, he came back and he had the gall to try doing the same idea again. But obviously the world was a different place. The technology was different, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and then the next time it worked and then we all say that he's a genius and this incredible company was created.

16:38Was it a good strategy? Was it a bad strategy? Was it a good idea? Was it a bad idea? I'm not really convinced that it was either, other than the fact that just the universe kind of clicked and moved in his favor the second time he did it and didn't the first time. So look, I mean, we can, again, I think that we should take heart from that. But what was true both times was that the charisma in the story was bloody irresistible. And people believed in Jobs and backed him, even with the original Macintosh that didn't work, because he was still doing that Jobs magic and selling the dream then and he did it and he did it later on thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having ya if you want the full episode it will be in the show notes a link will be in the show notes the full episode thank you so much please leave friends as well means the all day.