There are times in every business when it's not clear what needs to happen next.
You know the business can go further, but are unsure what will take it there.
There is real potential in the business. Yet the next stage will require more than repeating what has worked so far.
Assumptions that once worked no longer feel quite right.
The market has moved. Customers have changed. Technology is opening new possibilities and lowering old barriers to entry. Yet the thinking behind the business has not fully caught up.
You are unsure where the next opportunity will come from.
Some opportunities lie in improving what already works. Others may require a new market, offer, category or business model. The challenge is knowing which possibilities deserve serious exploration.
The hard choices keep being deferred.
There are credible, competing views around the table, but no shared basis for deciding what to prioritise, protect, stop or pursue.
Value is too hard to explain.
The business creates meaningful value, yet people do not understand it quickly, clearly or strongly enough to choose it.
Demand is not what it could be.
Existing demand is not converting as well as it should. Future demand is not being created at the pace the business will need.
These are the moments when a business needs to see more completely.
To understand what has shaped its success so far. To identify what is changing around it. To distinguish the opportunities worth pursuing from the ones that merely distract.
That requires better questions, asked in the right places, before the answers become obvious to everyone else.
You need strategy with full sight.
This is the work I do: helping businesses find clearer direction, build a more compelling story, and give their marketing something substantive to build from.
“I have now worked with Saul across three different businesses, both domestic and international.
Without doubt, what he makes appear simple is a sweet science, one that Saul has in spades.
He brings clarity, insight and challenge, grounded in real methodology and the grist to understand the problems brands are facing.”
Oliver Black, Founder and Investor.
How I can help
My work spans business, brand, marketing and executive leadership. Each has its own questions and disciplines, and each affects the others.
The business needs a clear theory of value: an account of where growth will come from, who will benefit and why the organisation is particularly well placed to create it.
That theory shapes the brand, giving people a way to recognise and understand the value of the business. Marketing turns that understanding into interest, demand and action.
Executive leadership shapes what the organisation is able to do with all three. It determines how assumptions are examined, how competing views are resolved, which choices are made and whether those choices continue to guide the organisation when other pressures emerge.
I use the Eight Strategic Sights to help leadership teams examine the business at each of these levels and understand how the decisions connect.
Business Strategy
For organisations that know they can go further and need a clearer view of where growth will come from and what will make it defensible.
I examine the assumptions shaping the business, identify the opportunities that deserve serious attention and develop a clearer theory of value for what comes next.
Brand Strategy
For businesses whose value is real, though its expression currently lacks the clarity, distinction or force it deserves.
I define the role the brand can play in people’s lives, the conviction it can stand for and the story that makes its difference easier to recognise and choose.
Marketing Strategy
For organisations that need to turn strategic intent into stronger demand.
I build the connection between what the business wants to become and what customers need to see, understand and feel. This creates a more coherent basis for growth, communication and activation.
Executive Leadership
For leaders and teams making consequential decisions in conditions of change.
Through retreats, executive sessions and advisory relationships, I help teams bring important assumptions into view, examine the perspectives around the table and establish a shared basis for deciding.
The shape of the work
The question facing the organisation determines the shape of the engagement.
A focused project may examine the direction of the business, its theory of value, its position or its approach to demand.
A leadership retreat or series of executive sessions may be more appropriate when the central requirement is to examine an important choice and establish a shared way forward.
An advisory relationship allows the work to continue as decisions develop and their implications become clearer.
Speaking engagements and larger company sessions are described separately on the Speaking page.
“Saul was instrumental in helping us navigate building a practical and ambitious strategic direction as a newly scaled philanthropy. His unique perspectives, inquisitive coach-don't-tell approach and ability to weave theory and reality, was a refreshing offering for myself and my trustees who've had our fair share of consultants and 'strategic advisors.'
He met us where we were as well as helped drive us to where we needed to be in a short span of time. Working with Saul to bring it all together felt like a real partnership, with the process just as valuable as the result. It's also especially rare to find someone who can so seamlessly blend what's valuable and what's not between the logics of business and impact. ”
Felicity Tan, Founding Executive Director, The Risman Foundation.