Our Approach
Strategy With a Bias to Action
We are thoughtful and curious, with a strong desire to understand—and a strong bias to action! Our approach to business strategy has three components: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and a coherent action to meet or resolve a critical issue or challenge.
Diagnosis
Actually, we’re insanely curious! We want to hear from stakeholders—to know their vision, their passion and their goals. We strive to discern the constraints AND the current prevailing conditions within and without the organization to best surface the critical issues in need of address.
Guiding Policy
Awareness is not a plan and reacting is not a strategy. We work with you to create and enact a guiding policy that is comprised of the constraints and principles for action within your organization and affected teams.
Coherent Plan of Action
Insight without a coherent plan of action does not produce lasting change. We’ll facilitate this process providing recommendations where needed, from directional to specific tactics. We may also support action through our network of providers—scaled according to scope, budget and need.
And for no extra charge, we’ll bug you ‘till it gets done!
We don’t think this is easy, in fact, if we’re a good fit, we expect that both of us will be challenged occasionally to stand in discomfort. When that happens, we’ll be there with you.
Mentoring & Advisory Services
The easiest way to work with Walden is in an advisor or mentor-focused call.
Advisory: Target a specific issue or problem—preceded by a brief exploratory call or email to identify the issue to ensure there’s a good fit for a satisfying result.
Mentoring: Engage in an open-ended conversational format focused on your business and needs. This can be a very valuable place to start as topics and deeper concerns may surface in the course of our conversation that had not been present at the beginning of the call.
These can be booked on an hour basis or structured as a recurring monthly or weekly engagement.
Retainer: In-house Business Strategy Consulting
You shouldn’t have to make a cost assessment every time you’re inspired to reach out or start something new. That’s why in addition to time & project-limited options, I also offer fixed-fee, unlimited access retainers.
Workshops & Audits
Positioning Your Business
What it is:
We help you find the answers to who you are, what you do, for whom and why it matters so that your business can communicate your vision and mission to your audience and throughout your organization.
Who it’s for:
The ideal collaborators in this workshop are founders, the leadership team and/or key stakeholders in the business.
What we’ll do together:
The core of the engagement is a half-day, off-site workshop, bracketed by preliminary onboarding and preparatory work and a post workshop review of key findings and discuss development of guiding policy for future actions.
Business Modeling
What it is:
We’ll unpack the core hypotheses and assumptions of the organization, providing better visualization and analysis for strategic planning.
Who it’s for:
The ideal collaborators in this workshop are the leadership and the key positions responsible for managing changes in purpose or mission.
What we’ll do together:
The core of the engagement is one or more brainstorming sessions using the Lean Canvas template. Prior to these sessions we’ll provide onboarding and orientation to the Lean Canvas model and follow with sessions focused on synthesis and developing policy recommendations for future actions.
Digital Presence Assessment
What we’ll do:
Our assessment and audits report on your existing presence in the digital—how that shows up in messaging, on platforms and technically.
What you get:
Based on our findings we may recommend action—both remedial and new initiatives—that moves you toward better fit customers and more profitable engagements (prerequisite: Brand Positioning Workshop)
