Why Most Strategy Feels Like a Waste of Time (And What Real Strategy Actually Looks Like)

Émilie Carignan
May 29
4 min read

If you’re building a company today, you’re swimming in advice.

Playbooks. Frameworks. Hot takes.

It’s easy to confuse what looks strategic with what actually drives progress.

So let’s talk about what real strategy feels like (and if it's worth your time), how to recognize the fluff, and how to tell the difference when you see it in the wild.

Strategy is not the plan. It’s the set of high-impact focus, made from the best information you have today, knowing it’ll change.

Why Fluff Feels So Tempting

Growth stalls. You don’t know exactly why. Then someone shows up with a shiny promise: a proven method, a deck full of answers. It sounds simple. They’ll do most of the work. You’ll get the clarity you’ve been craving.

But if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve already been burned.

Maybe you paid $20,000 for a brand strategy that now lives in your Drive, untouched. You pull it out for fundraising or onboarding, but it doesn’t shape your roadmap, messaging, or customer conversations.

It’s not that the document was bad. It’s that it never touched the real, messy work of growing the business.

What Fluff Strategy Looks Like in the Wild

You don’t always know it’s fluff until it’s too late. But here are some signals to watch for:

1. Frameworks Over Facts

They lead with jargon, models, or methods. They name-drop theories and acronyms instead of asking about your customers or your traction. If you're hearing more about their "unique framework" than your own users, pause.

2. One-Size-Fits-All Thinking

They offer a universal solution for a very specific problem. "This worked for 200 clients just like you" might sound comforting, but unless those clients have your exact stage, team, customer base, and GTM strategy, it doesn’t mean much.

3. Workshops as a Starting Point

They want to begin with a mission and values workshop. Culture work matters. But if you’re paying for marketing or product strategy, make sure they start by understanding your customers, not running a branding offsite.

4. Beautiful Outputs, No Implementation

They promise a polished slide deck, not change. If their main deliverable is something to show your board, not something your team can act on, it’s fluff.

What Real Strategy Feels Like

Strategy isn’t a long-term vision you keep in your head.

It’s not a roadmap or a deck.

It’s your best-informed answer to: “Where should we focus now to have the most impact?”

And that answer evolves. It gives you clarity on what to stop doing. What to double down on. What actually matters.

With one client, I studied their fastest-converting customers to understand what drove speed. That work uncovered something bigger: the real barrier to growth was delivery delays. People weren’t using the product for months after buying. That stalled referrals, upsells, and momentum.

That insight changed everything. The team aligned. They moved quickly. Strategy didn’t come from a slide. It came from finding the real problem.

The Work is the Strategy

You don’t pause the business to do strategy. You do strategy while flying the plane.

You talk to customers and adjust your roadmap. You test a message, get feedback, and refine it. You notice a pattern, dig in, and make an informed bet.

Strategy isn’t a separate function. It’s how you make choices with intention, under pressure.

And it’s never final. You will always be learning and adjusting.

What Gets in the Way

Speed masquerading as progress. You ship a landing page just to test something, but you don’t know what "good" looks like. The result is a blur of mediocre tests with no insight.
Outsourcing your thinking. You hire someone to "do strategy for you." But you are the only one who can own the hard choices. You can get help, you should, but you can’t check out.
Fear of iteration. You try once, don’t get the result you want, and declare it a failed strategy. Real impact comes from repeating, refining, learning. Not from one big swing.

I know you're under pressure. Time and money are tight. But if you only chase short-term wins, you’ll keep paying for them later. A good strategy doesn’t require perfection. But it does require focus.

How to Spot Someone Selling Real Impact

When you're hiring a consultant, freelancer, or agency, here’s how to know they’re focused on value, not fluff:

They ask questions you don’t have answers to. They’re curious, not prescriptive.
They want to talk to your customers. Not just you.
They push you toward clarity, not promises.
They’re okay with messy. Because real insight lives there.
They tell you what they don't know yet. And what they need to learn before making recommendations.

These people don’t show up with the answer. They help you find the right questions.

In Short

Strategy isn’t a deck. It’s a habit. It’s not perfect. But it’s impactful.

It helps you choose what matters next. With just enough confidence to act. And just enough humility to change.

No magic bullet. Just real-world clarity, one iteration at a time.