Julian Cole – Strategy Finishing School

Curriculum Deep Dive

The Strategy Finishing School is structured around three career tiers: Strategist, Strategy Director, and Head of Strategy. That progression is the backbone. The first module covers fundamentals—what strategy is, how to write one, the different types. It’s solid but not groundbreaking. Where the course earns its keep is modules 2 through 8: Research, Insights, Briefing, Brand Strategy, Comms Planning, Advertising Effectiveness, and Business Strategy. Each is packed with specific frameworks. The Insights module, for example, walks through flipping insights and adding tension—concepts you can apply immediately to a brief. The Comms Planning module includes a consumer journey mapping tool and a comms framework that’s more detailed than most agency proprietary models. Then there’s the BIG-T section: Diplomacy, Management, and Selling Strategy. This is the differentiator. Most strategy courses stop at the craft. Cole spends real time on agency politics, how to work with creatives and media agencies, and—critically—how to sell strategy to clients and internal stakeholders. The RICK Sales Model and the proactive strategy frameworks are directly actionable. The library of Google Drive templates is a bonus: over 100 frameworks you can copy-paste. That said, the Business Strategy module has a “Coming Soon” placeholder, which feels incomplete for a course at this price point.

Technical Mastery & Skills

This isn’t a theoretical course. You’ll walk away with a replicable process for writing a creative brief, a brand strategy deck, and a comms plan. The templates are the real MVP—strategy set-up decks, scoping documents, even a strategy department vision template. You can literally swipe and adapt. The course also teaches you how to read a financial report and apply a growth matrix, which is rare for a strategy program. The advertising effectiveness module covers mental and physical availability, distinctive assets, and category entry points—concepts from Byron Sharp’s How Brands Grow, but applied practically. You’ll learn to create a KPI framework that ties back to business outcomes. Where it falls short: there’s no interactive feedback. You watch videos, download templates, and work through the modules on your own. If you’re someone who needs a coach to review your work, this won’t replace that. But for self-directed learners, the volume of ready-to-use material is high.

Learning Experience

The course is delivered as 80+ video lessons, each ranging from 5 to 20 minutes. The production is straightforward—slides with voiceover, no fancy animations. Cole speaks clearly and avoids jargon. The pacing is good: you can complete a module in a few hours. The Google Drive library is organized by module, so you can jump to the template you need without watching the video. That’s a smart design choice. One limitation: the course feels like a one-way broadcast. There’s no community, no live sessions, no Q&A. You’re on your own to apply the frameworks. For some, that’s fine. For others, it might feel isolating. The course also assumes you have some agency experience—if you’ve never written a brief or presented a strategy, you’ll need to supplement with foundational material.

Final Verdict

This is a course for strategists who are serious about moving up. It’s not for dabblers. The curriculum is dense, the templates are practical, and the BIG-T modules fill a gap most strategy training ignores. If you’re a mid-level strategist stuck at the same level, or a Strategy Director who wants to formalize your management approach, this will save you years of trial and error. The missing Business Strategy module is a blemish, but the rest of the content is strong enough to justify the investment. Act on it if you want to lead strategy, not just execute it.