STRATEGY

Strategy gives us direction.

The bridge between what the research found and what the organization does next. Strategy at HCP is not a deck. It is a decision structure, with the tradeoffs named and the scoreboard built in.

BEFORE MOTION, THERE IS STRATEGY

We are built to think before we speak.

Trends are temporary. Platforms come and go. Technology changes its mind every year. Insight endures. Our value has never been how loud we can be, but how clearly we can see patterns, risks, opportunities, human behavior, and the small truths that move large decisions.

Strategy is where that seeing becomes a decision. We facilitate the conversation, name what the organization has to give up, write the plan, and build in how it gets measured. Then marketing carries it into the world. That order has not changed since 1986.

WHAT WE DO

Twelve ways we turn insight into direction.

Engaged as a full planning process, or as counsel on the single decision in front of leadership.

01

Strategic Planning

Multi year plans built with leadership and stakeholders, written so the objectives can actually be measured against something.

02

Facilitation & Workshops

Board retreats, leadership sessions and stakeholder workshops facilitated by someone with no internal stake in the outcome.

03

Positioning & Messaging

Where the organization sits in its market, what it claims, and the language everyone uses to say it the same way.

04

Brand Architecture & Naming

How a portfolio of services, divisions or acquired companies relates under one parent, and what each part is called.

05

Competitive & Market Analysis

A clear read on who else is in the room, what they own, and where the open ground actually is.

06

Organizational Alignment

Internal communications strategy and change communications, so the plan survives contact with the people who have to run it.

07

Executive Counsel

Ongoing advisory and fractional marketing leadership for executives who need a strategist in the room rather than another vendor.

08

Crisis Communications

Plans built before the crisis, and counsel during it. Six years of standing crisis planning for one Florida port authority.

09

Public Affairs & Engagement

Stakeholder engagement, grassroots strategy and public affairs counsel for organizations operating in front of a public body.

10

Communications Audits

An honest evaluation of what the organization is currently saying, spending and getting back for it.

11

Program Evaluation

Assessment of an existing plan against what it promised, including plans this firm did not write.

12

Roadmaps & Accountability

Sequenced objectives with owners, timelines and the measures that decide whether it worked.

HOW WE WORK

A plan is a set of choices, written down.

01

Assess what exists

The current plan, the analytics, the spend and the last three years of results, reviewed before anyone proposes anything new.

02

Interview the people who carry it

Board members, executives, staff and stakeholders, individually. What leadership believes and what the organization believes are rarely the same document.

03

Facilitate the decisions

We put the tradeoffs on the table and make the group choose. A plan that avoids the hard choice is not a plan.

04

Write it and build the scoreboard

A plan document leadership can hand to a board, with accountability built in so progress is visible in year two.

THE RECORD

Plans that had to survive a board.

A selection from the case record. Each engagement below names the client and the work.

Hillsborough County Hotel & Lodging Association

A strong market position turned into a three year strategy with accountability built in.

The Westshore Alliance

A comprehensive strategic plan built with new leadership and district stakeholders, grounded in original resident and worker research.

Florida’s Adventure Coast, Hernando County Tourism

A strategic planning process evaluating brand awareness and setting the objectives to grow tourism over the following decade.

Pinellas County Economic Development

A strategic planning framework facilitated for the organization and adopted with County Administration.

Humane Society of Tampa Bay

Assessment of the prior plan, review of internal analytics, board and executive interviews, and facilitated strategic workshop sessions.

Port Tampa Bay

Six years designing, implementing and maintaining a crisis communications plan and a proactive public relations strategy.

Troutman Sanders

Grassroots and public affairs strategy across a national firm of more than 650 attorneys in 16 offices.

PSCU

A seat on the C level management team, facilitating evaluation of business targets and market potential.

Visit St. Pete/Clearwater

Counsel to destination leadership on restructuring the county film incentive program, and tourism strategy through the pandemic.

RFS

Branding and positioning recommendations extrapolated from the client’s own organizational planning work.

The Surgicalist Group

A twelve month strategy bringing separate practices under a parent brand, with speaking, tradeshow and content sequencing.

USF Federal Credit Union

Interviews with board members, students, alumni, university staff and credit union staff before any long term strategy was proposed.

Academy at the Lakes

Leadership stakeholder sessions with the head of school, staff, board, admissions and development before positioning work began.

SMI

A full research study across high end and staple retail chains, used to set the market strategy that followed.

THE OPERATING SYSTEM

Research. Strategy. Marketing.

This is not a tagline. It is the operating system of the firm. Research gives us honesty. Strategy gives us direction. Marketing gives ideas life in the real world. When these three meet, creativity stops being decoration and becomes momentum.

01

Research

Research gives us honesty.

02

Marketing

Marketing gives ideas life.

03

Strategy

Strategy gives us direction.

LET'S GET STARTED

Bring us the decision.

Tell us what leadership is weighing. We will tell you whether it needs research, a facilitated process, or simply a second opinion from outside the building. The consultation is free and confidential.