Why Strat For That Exists
Hi, my name is Matt O’Toole. I am the creator of Strat For That.
For years I was a marketing strategist for iconic brands. I spent my time uncovering and communicating game-changing insights about the needs, motives, and stressors of their consumers to a wide range of audiences.
Eventually I chose to leave that career to be a full-time dad, because raising my children had become a stronger calling to me. I traded meeting rooms for playgrounds and never looked back.
I may have left the corporate world but my interest in people and why they do what they do never turned off. After observing the interactions between parents and their kids on the playgrounds we went to, the behavior of students I substitute taught, and talking to friends and family it became clear to me that there is a growing disconnect between many children and their exhausted parents; parents who are struggling to handle both the classic and a new generation of parenting problems using the way they were raised and a mashup of external pieces of advice.
In the beginning I too found myself in tough parenting situations, and feeling disconnected with my children. Usually it was when an approach that worked easily with one child would just trigger the other. I didn’t know what to do and like many I turned to the internet for advice.
What I found was parenting coaches that had thousands of social media posts and were quick to send daily automated texts/emails to me like a clingy friend, and books and seminars that dumped a ton of high level information on me and were big time and/or financial commitments - but nothing that made me say, “Oh that’s what I am supposed to do!”
Soon I realized that much of successfully addressing the conflicts and difficulties with children is uncovering the key “a-ha!” insight to overcome the underlying real problem, combined with delivering your message in a way that will not only be received and acted on, but strengthen the connection between you and the child.
A lot of times it felt like I was using the same professional skillset I had built up when I was focused on the interactions and relationship between a brand and its shoppers, and now applying it to parents and their children.
After many wins with my own kids, and kids that I interacted with that were supposedly “bad” or “uncooperative” but weren’t actually either of those, I decided to formalize these strategies for everyone to run with. I put together a template that is concise, understandable and actionable, just as I had done for the many teams I had worked with.
Also, truth be told, I wanted to put something down in writing so that when my kids have kids, they have the playbook I wish I had from the beginning.
That is why I created Strat For That. It is a time-efficient platform of insightful “strats” and tips that cut through the noise and clutter of today’s parenting advice industry and help any parent from any walk of life navigate the struggles they are having with their child.
We’ve got a strat for that parenting problem and want to make life a little easier for you.
All the best,
Matt
