How to Use Goal-Problem-Solution Strategy with Julian Cole

So I always say a strategy has, um, it's a 1-2-3 with a strategy. One paragraph, two points of view, the business and the consumer point of view, and then three parts: the goal, the problem, and the solution.

I love that. That's great. I'm gonna write that down.

So my name is Julian Cole. I'm a strategy trainer at The Strategy Finishing School, which used to be called Planning Dirty Academy. Uh, it's where I help strategists learn the fundamentals of strategy. Everyone kind of deals with imposter syndrome in strategy, kind of no one's really taught, um, how to do it and the fundamentals. And that's what my course does, is it teaches you fundamentals, gives you the confidence to be great. It comes from my experience of being head of communications planning at two great agencies in BDO and BBH in New York. Plus my time kind of consulting to leading brands like Facebook, Uber, Disney. Um, so yeah, that's the, that's the spiel.

Perfect. Awesome. Um, what do you think the most frequent or most common mistake you see brands or strategists making?

The most common mistake I would see in regards to strategy is that they don't focus on what I call the kind of consumer problem. And so with a lot of brands, you'll see them write kind of a strategy or a creative brief, and they'll go, people are not aware of our product. And that's not really— consumers don't care that they're aware of your product or not. That's not their problem. That's the business's problem. You need to understand what's the consumer problem and how are you helping to address that. I'd say that's the first one. I'd say the second big problem is strategy. People not having a clear understanding of what strategy is. You know, people write— if you can't write a strategy in a paragraph, you don't have one. You don't need 67 slide decks to create a strategy. It should be clear and be able to just kind of distill it down to one paragraph.

That's great. And that actually prompts me, it prompts a question that I was going to ask a little later, but like, I feel like people frequently sort of mix up strategy and tactics and, um, you can rephrase it to something else if you'd like, but I feel like that's sort of like a common mistake. Do you want to address sort of like what you see as the big differences there?

Yeah, so I think everyone has these problems. We throw around these terms all the time. So the way that I define a strategy is a strategy is a 1-2-3. So it's one strategy contains two points of view, so the business point of view and the consumer point of view. Then it has three elements to it. It's got the goal, the problem, and the solution. And so that is what encapsulates a strategy. And so in that, um, a strategy is kind of your guiding light. It's showing you where to go. When we talk about tactics, A tactic is a way to get closer to the goal, so it's in line. So there'll be multiple tactics under one strategy. So for instance, if you want an example, I can give an example because that always helps. Yeah, the strategy for PlayStation was to invite, inspire, and challenge game— to invite, inspire, and challenge gamers to their greatness. And so it was all around— they realized the consumer problem was that gamers felt like they weren't being respected, like their wins in game were not seen as valuable in the world. Where what we realized was the emotions and the exhilaration of winning a game in, you know, FIFA on FIFA is the same as winning in your indoor soccer league. So we wanted to legitimize those feelings. So that's why we're inviting, inspiring, and challenging gamers to their greatness. So in that, there was a TV ad that kind of kicked off the whole thing, which was a rally call to like invite gamers to reach their potential and their greatness. And then there were other things in there, like another tactic was we, we had all these amazing props from the TV commercial which were iconic to these famous games. So what we did is we auctioned off those based on the trophies that you had gained in-game. So it again helped to invite gamers to their greatness because you had to win those trophies. So we were saying the greatest get the greatest, and these were real-world rewards. So that's how we see like there are two tactics that sit under one strategy. So I always say a strategy has, um, it's a 1-2-3 with a strategy. One paragraph, two points of view, the business and the consumer point of view, and then three parts: the goal, the problem, and the solution.

I love that.

That's great.

I'm gonna write that down. You talk a lot about the importance of a brief. Did you, just out of curiosity, did you write a brief for yourself in Planning Dirty?

No, I didn't. I did, I think I did in the end write like a strategy on a page. I reversed out of it, but I didn't start with that. So not following my own advice, bit off there.

Well, for other people, like let's talk about like, you know, creators who are starting out. What do you think, do you think they should develop a brief and strategy and actually go through that process for themselves? Why or why not? What would they get from that?

I think, I think the biggest thing and what we see creators, the best creators on kind of platforms like TikTok, what we see is that they understand what the consumer problem is or the tension that people are feeling, and they're able to relate to that and pull that out and give people a solution. So, you know, all these kind of like we had the smaller hacky things that, um, you know, we know work on the platform. So the first one is everyone talks about addressing you in the first 3 seconds. That's kind of quite well known. Well, the reason that works is because we're bringing the consumer to the front where it's what is their problem and we're speaking directly to them rather than most ways that a lot of brands speak as well is they're so caught up in the product and developing an amazing product. They'll talk about the features first and they'll be like, 'Oh my God, this new pen has 3 different colors in the one pen.' And we're like, 'But that doesn't matter.' What the problem— what a better way to describe it would be is like, what is that person's problem that gets addressed with the 3-colored pen or the 4-colored pen? You hate having to hold multiple pens and you hate having heaps of things on you. Well, a pen will solve that. So understand the problem and address that first. And I think that's what great creators do. So understanding that is kind of key. So if I think about myself, I know that the problem for a lot of strategists is that they're feeling that feeling of imposter syndrome of saying, hey, I never got taught the proper way to do strategy and I really want to learn the fundamentals. So instead of me going, hey, I've got a course, here's 40 lessons in a course. I talk about the problem and understand the problem and show how that addresses that. So like things in the course, you know, it's not about massive lessons. I try to get the information as quick as possible and I give people like decks and swipe files that they can take straight away because I know the pain of being in the job. And I have this saying, I call it make it for Monday. So the whole course that I run, it's made for if you get that random request from a client who's like, hey, you're running the consumer journey workshop on Monday, and you're like, I've never run one of those in my life. The course is meant to be, hey, I can watch a video. Julian will have either an expert or he'll do it himself, and he'll explain how to run that workshop, and it'll give me the files that I need to be able to run that. And so That's really that understanding, I guess, of, um, the customer and/or the consumer and understanding, um, what they actually want and their problems are.

This has me thinking I should go, go do that for myself. I feel like I'm always trying to figure out, like, what I think I need to get a little bit more clarity and identify the tension and kind of what, what problem I'm solving.

It's interesting, you know, like, I think TikTok's an amazing platform because it allows us to experiment and to understand where the problem is. Because what you think is the initial problem is actually sometimes not it. So one thing that I've learned is that there's a bigger group of people, and I think when I've kind of had my most successful stuff on TikTok, it's when I'm talking to a bigger problem and tension point. So for me, I realize there's a much bigger opportunity and a much bigger market in understanding office politics and dynamics around how do you present ideas within an organization, how do you get sign-off from senior leadership, how do you deal with your boss. And when I talk about those broader subjects that are beyond just strategy, I notice that's what really resonates. Um, so there's probably something in that for me of like, you know, a modern-day How to Win Friends and Influence People. I've been thinking about that, or a guide to kind of diplomacy in the office space. Um, but yeah, that's the great thing about TikTok is that it allows you to experiment and kind of unravel these, these points or these pain points that you didn't even think you were addressing at the beginning.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Definitely gives you more flexibility. I think that's sort of the beauty of the, the For You page in a lot of ways.

Yeah.

You referenced, uh, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I'd be curious, what skills should people study, or books would you recommend people read as they explore getting into advertising?

So I would— I can talk to like the advertising strategist, and I would say the very first book that you should read is the JWT Guide to Planning, which is actually a free PDF. So you can just Google it and you can get it for free, and that gives you the structure of what a strategist does in their job. And it was written by the godfather of planning, so it was written I think like in the '70s. So it was a long time ago, but it still holds up today. And then there are books which will really help you. So there's another one called Truth, Lies, and Advertising, which is another classic from the '90s, but is the iconic Bible for, uh, planners. And then there's books which have really transformed the way marketing departments and agencies are kind of developing. So I would say Byron Sharp's, um, book on how brands grow, and then the IPA paper on Thinking Fast and Slow. Oh, um, uh, Thinking Fast and Slow, I think that's— sorry, that's Daniel Kahneman. Yeah, yeah, that's a great behavioral economics. But, um, the IPA, which is the industry body in England, released a paper called The Long and Short of It. So They are more on like the marketing science and how marketing actually works, especially in regards to advertising and brand building. So you kind of need to know those because I feel like every conversation with a planner or a strategist or every conversation with a client, they've just read it, or it's kind of changing the way they develop and create their integrated campaigns.

Love it. Thanks. And I'd be curious, so you've grown a newsletter, you've got an audience. What advice do you have for anyone else who's looking to grow a community? What do you think is like the, is there any sort of single lever that you've pulled that has been sort of like the 80/20 of it for you?

Yeah, I would say, Consistency is the biggest thing. Um, try to, before you launch anything, give yourself a bit of a runway of— and, and we talk about like batching content, which is like making, you know, if you're going to run a newsletter, write, uh, a month's worth of newsletters, like one a week, before you launch your first newsletter. I would say that's the key, because what happens is you will get dissuaded at the very beginning because you won't get the results, or you'll see other people and they look like they're nailing it, and then you're like, oh, why didn't this happen for me? Um, so that would be my biggest, uh, piece of advice. I'd say the second thing is, uh, learn in public. So my whole career, I've never been too careful about, um, keeping anything too private. I kind of share everything I learn as I go through it. So You know, a lot of the TikToks that I make are probably things that have just been a revelation that week or that day. And so I share that with my audience. And I think people are like, I've got to hold something back, um, if they're trying to create like a course or a product. And I'm like, no, just give everything out. That is how you'll attract an audience. And I think the other thing is, for me, the way that all started was I used to have Google slide decks that I'd just give away for for free. And that's the greatest thing. If you've got something that you found really useful in your job and you can share that with a bigger group, then that's going to be the best starting point. Um, I'd say that's a— that's kind of 3 pieces of advice. And then 4th, if I was to give a 4th one, sorry, uh, would be don't try to be too smart. I think at the beginning You want to feel like, especially when you're writing blogs and stuff, you're like, I want something really intellectual that people think I'm the smartest guy in the room. That's like the wrong way to go for it. I've found that if you can just give— not just stop trying to be the smartest, but be the most helpful or the most useful. And what's the problem that everyone has and how can you solve that for people? So it might be just like cleaning up a drive, or there's people who put trend reports together. So there's a group of planners who every year compile all trend reports and put it into one Google Drive. There's another— Sean Choi has a cultural calendar where he's got hundreds of cultural events every year, and he gives that away for free. Those things, they're not, you know, you're not intellectually, you know, sparking some new thought in strategy, but you're saving people hours of time, and they remember that. And find that quite helpful.

That's, that's awesome. I think that's great, very practical advice. And it's like, it's so easy to overcomplicate things.

Um, so easy. And, and you're right, like, no, the other thing is, is just remember no one has any time. And I think that again is what TikTok's great for. You know, people have got like 5 seconds, 30 seconds, so don't write essays. Try to distill it down. And that's the, that's the role of a strategist, is to distill the information down. So when you're out there publishing, you're actually practicing your craft as well.

Yeah, I love that one. I'd be curious to hear, like, what do you think most brands get wrong when it comes to building a community?

So I would say when they're building a community, what the thing they get wrong is, is thinking of it more as advertising. I think where community is strongest is actually on the back end. And when you think of like customer service or retention of products, I think that's where it really plays a role. And so for me, uh, you know, I just signed up to a copywriting AI software as a service, so like product, and it's a subscription service and it's great. Now they've got like a Facebook group and community there that's been like phenomenal of people like sharing stuff. Now that's not advertising on the front end, and I think a lot of marketers see it as advertising. We'll build a big community and get all these new people in. It doesn't work like that. I think the way community works is on the back end of keeping people retained, buying the product again. And so, or, or on a subscription model. So I feel like that example of me, you know, I wouldn't have signed up to a random Facebook group for a copywriting AI tool beforehand, um, and just joined it. But I do once I've got the product, and it plays a really important role. So don't think of it as advertising, think of it as almost customer retention. And I think if you can keep those lines clean, that's where we kind of get away from the problem.

Just out of curiosity, which one did you use? I get those ads all the time and I've never tried any of those services.

Yes, Jasper.

Is it good?

They've renamed themselves from Jarvis. Yeah, I love it. It's great.

All right, I'm gonna have to try that out.

It—

the ads always make it look so easy and I'm like, I should try one of those.

Some— it doesn't— so it is a tool rather than a replacement of copywriting, so it just helps you it saves you from the dread of a blank page, I'd say. So, um, but it's very helpful and it shows you— actually, the other good thing I'd say it does is it shows you how to write marketing copy. And so if you've never been trained in writing marketing copy, like I've been a strategist, I never was a copywriter, this is an amazing tool to show you how to write marketing style copy, which is fantastic for me.

That's probably the thing that I've learned the most from TikTok and, and it's opened my eyes to how much more I need to learn. Like the art of like writing copy and like a hook and being able to like maintain like a cadence and, and get somebody to follow you all the way to the end. It's like you realize like, oh, it's like a, it's like a formula and it's like there's certain like fundamentals you, you sort of learn pretty quick, but then it's like after that it's like an art.

It. Yeah. What's been the number one thing that you've learned, like, in terms of TikTok? What are the 3 things that you like— this feels like a secret that I know this, but it really works?

Yeah, it's, um, it's funny, like, they all seem so obvious now, but it's sort of like— I mean, like, you referenced one of them, like, you, um, I think anything sort of just like hyperbolic language, you know, it's like It's not like, check out this awesome, like, you know, check out this cool blank. It's like, check out this amazing top secret, whatever, like hyperbolic language. And then I think sort of like holding something back, like posing a question and then teasing like, and you're gonna get the answer, like this payoff is coming and it's amazing. You know, even if your take is very tame on it, riled up a little bit. Like actually my buddy, Keen, who, you know, was the art director, he's got this down to a science. Like, he almost all his TikToks now, so they're photography, and he goes up, he does a lot of street photography and stuff, but he like incorporates a lot of humor into it. He's a very talented guy, but like he does a lot of those like, so I saw this guy and then we, you know, we're gonna go do a shoot. And he almost always starts it with like, So I saw this Fortnite character and it's like somebody in a Spider-Man outfit, and so then everybody's like, that's not Fortnite.

Like, yeah, you make a bit of a mistake, a logical— yes. And yeah, I feel like there's something about that, like getting the comments section going a little bit seems to be like a key piece.

Um, there's actually a law, Cunningham's Law: the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer. Like, if you do that, yeah, your engagement is through the roof because everybody wants to tell you how wrong you are. Yeah, he'll always like misspell things and stuff. Yeah, this has been awesome. I guess like, uh, one last sort of takeaway, I'd be curious, as, as an expert strategist, uh, uh, what advice do you have for me in my own TikToks?

Oh, your own TikToks. I feel like you've got the style, um, uh, the style down pat. I think this is my own advice to myself, is like constantly testing new ways, new things. Um, it's really hard because I feel like you've got a pretty established brand style now too, like that when I see it come up in my feed, it's like you don't even have to be there. I know like the color backgrounds, the hues you use, and like the type of news and your voice. But I would have assumed, and it sounds like you're doing this now, just testing out new formats as they kind of come along and seeing what works. But I don't think I need to be giving you any advice because you are way bigger than me. You're 4 times bigger than me, so, or like whatever it is. So I feel like the little mini who could be learning off you. So what would be your advice actually back to me, what would you say I should do?

Oh, that's a good question because I like your stuff a lot. Um, you know, one thing, knowing sort of like you're touching on like a lot of the office politics side of things seems to be getting people intrigued. It's like sometimes it almost feels like there's a— maybe this is what, what is working really well, but I'd be sort of curious to see if like, you know, you're often very removed from like an office setting. And like, I almost wonder what it would be like to like almost like bring it to life somehow and like put almost for those people who are curious about that stuff, I almost wonder like, is it because they're not quite in that setting? And so maybe even giving them another layer of like depth and understanding might be helpful. I don't know, like, that's the only thing that sort of comes to mind, because I, I, I like— I love your stuff. I think it's dope.

Yeah, it's funny because it's like the— where I started was like walks on the beach, and I'm talking about like strategy. It was like, they're so far away from each other. It was just like, because I don't work in an office anymore, I work from home, it's like you're pretty much seeing my office, like my home office, but all my advice is on actually working in a corporate office, which is quite different. So maybe I do need to do like some shoots in corporate offices or something.

Yeah, maybe. Although, you know, it might be that disconnect that is like so appealing because like I think this juxtaposition is sometimes like interesting. But like, yeah, maybe, maybe it could like, you know, Since it is that higher level, I feel like some of the most common questions, like, I feel like I get with somebody who is like not as familiar with advertising, they're almost like, oh, like you guys just all sit around and come up with ideas. And so sort of like navigating like, okay, this is like where the creatives sit and you break 'em out in teams and yeah, like, I don't know, that might be sort of like interesting. Yeah, I don't know, that's just a thought.

The insider, yeah, the insider tips. Yeah, it'll be, it'll be interesting to see where it goes. Like, I feel pretty excited that, uh, I feel like the platform's growing so fast at the moment, so it's kind of like we're on very early and, you know, have ridden through that really tough, um, awkward stage at the start of like feeling comfortable in front of camera. So it's like so exciting to be where we are now. Um, of getting it right. I actually have been like really focusing on YouTube this week as well, and like that's been like, oh, so much I could be doing better there. So I'm like, oh God, I gotta—

that's what I wanted to— I have so much stuff I want to tackle. Like, I want to do YouTube, I want to like get better with my newsletters, like I want to get better Twitter. It's like so much stuff, so much fucking stuff.

I know, it's too much, it's too much. Um, But yeah, it's— and, and you just need the support around you. I'm so glad you've got a— like, the video editor is like key. Um, then you just need to build, build from there.