What We Do: Strategic Planning Consulting
Our strategic planning consulting delivers tailored, proven methodologies that unify cross-functional teams, strengthen customer partnerships, and drive profitable growth at scale.
Drive Profitability
With Expert Strategic
Planning Consulting
- Our strategic multi-year planning consultants have deep professional experience to drive agile strategic planning, all coming from leadership roles across multiple industries.
- We pair multilingual consulting capabilities with global analysis to provide scalable strategic planning services for global organizations
- Backed by a proven methodology, our strategic, multi-year planning consulting services are fully customized and tailored to your organization’s specific needs.
- We specialize in strategic planning consulting for enterprise global sales organizations.
Our Strategic Planning Consulting Areas of Expertise
Future-Focused Growth, Not Just Problem Solving
Many organizations get stuck firefighting immediate challenges. We help teams identify new growth opportunities and build strategies that move beyond short-term fixes, creating long-term competitive advantage.
Portfolio & Category Expansion
Our approach equips sales teams to think beyond single opportunities. We guide organizations in portfolio and category selling, helping them maximize the value of their full brand suite with each customer.
Strategic CPG/FMCG Planning for Complex Markets
Strategic planning with major retailers isn’t about filling a funnel — it’s about strengthening priority relationships and navigating large-scale, high-value partnerships. We specialize in helping consumer goods companies build strategies that work in these complex environments.
Faster Execution With Clear Roadmaps
We combine proven frameworks with practical execution plans that support sales teams for 60–120 days. This accelerates transformation without overwhelming your teams, delivering results faster while keeping alignment across functions.
Trusted By Industry Leaders
Most Strategic Planning Consulting Services Fall Flat in These Areas
Organizations Struggle With These Pain Points
✖ Lack of Deep Professional Experience
Many strategic planning consultants understand the framework of building strategic business plans but lack the professional experience and industry knowledge to apply that framework to real-world applications.
✖ Inability to Scale
You can’t launch unified, organization-wide strategic planning with functional barriers and without a deep understanding of the market
✖ Lack of Customization
Your strategic planning consulting needs to align with your organization’s strengths while overcoming weaknesses to provide effective, scalable solutions that drive profitability. Re-packaged strategic planning frameworks won’t cut it!
✖ Cross-Functional Misalignment
Other strategic planning consultant firms overlook the fact that successful strategic planning requires more than just the sales team. Without engaging supply chain, marketing, R&D, and finance, sales plans often fail to gain traction across the organization.
✖ Brand-Centric vs. Customer-Centric Thinking
Too often, planning focuses on how great the brand is, instead of how the brand helps the customer succeed. This brand-first approach alienates customers and prevents long-term, collaborative partnerships.
✖ Order-Taker Mentality
Sales teams frequently fall into the trap of being transactional order-takers—responding to requests instead of influencing growth. Without training in storytelling, negotiation, and problem-solving, sales organizations fail to evolve into trusted advisors.
Avoid Common Paint Points With The Maker Group’s Customized Strategic Planning Consulting Solutions
✔ All of Our Sales Consultants Have Deep Industry Experience
Our strategic planning consulting stems from experience, not cookie-cutter planning frameworks. Our consultants utilize their CPG and deep professional experience to provide effective strategic planning to help achieve your organization’s mission, goals, and objectives.
✔ We Provide Scalable Solutions for Global Markets
Unify and scale your organization’s strategic planning with a global approach. Our sales consultants integrate best practices from around the world with global market analysis to anticipate changes and trends in your market that will affect your strategic planning.
Our multilingual and cultural capabilities allow us to provide strategic planning consulting in the following languages to help unify your organization’s strategic planning:
- English
- LATAM Spanish
- European Spanish
- Canadian French & European French
- Italian
- German & Dutch
- European French
- Mandarin & Cantonese
- European Portuguese & LATAM Portuguese
✔ We Use Proven Methodology to Create Custom Sales Strategies
We use proven methodology to create fully customized strategic planning tailored to your organization’s strengths, to overcome weaknesses, and deliver on goals.
✔ We Align Your Cross-Functional Teams
We help break down silos by aligning sales, supply chain, marketing, finance, etc. to work toward the same customer goals. Think of sales as a team sport—success happens only when every player is working in sync.
✔ We Transform Sales Teams into Strategic Partners
Our methodology moves teams beyond transactional selling. By teaching storytelling, data-driven insights, and negotiation, we empower salespeople to shift from “order takers” to strategic partners who influence business growth.
✔ We Teach You to Leverage Your Assets Effectively
From advertising budgets to cutting-edge technology, your organization has untapped assets. We train teams to strategically trade and negotiate these assets—turning what was once given away for free into tools that build stronger, more profitable customer relationships.
Bringing Strategic Planning Consulting to Scale With The Maker Group Toolkit
We guide organizations through a structured approach that transforms sales teams from transactional order-takers into strategic growth partners. Our consulting methodology is built around four key phases:
Phase 1: Identify Growth Opportunities
We teach teams how to spot big category growth opportunities in the marketplace using our Triple Win Method — identifying solutions that benefit the shopper, the customer, and the brand. This creates a foundation for strategic, customer-first planning.
Phase 2: Design Customer-Centric Solutions
Sales organizations learn how to align with customer needs by thinking like merchants. Instead of pushing brand-first agendas, we help teams craft solutions that solve real business problems for their customers.
Phase 3: Build the Story & Sell Strategically
Teams develop the skills to turn insights into compelling stories. We teach data-driven storytelling, negotiation, and problem-solving, so salespeople can influence decision-making and strengthen customer relationships.
Phase 4: Leverage Assets & Drive Results
Organizations learn how to use their full range of assets strategically — whether that’s marketing, technology, or category expertise. Rather than giving value away for free, sales teams are equipped to negotiate trade-offs (e.g., shelf space for marketing support) that maximize mutual success and benefit.
Strategic Planning Consulting FAQs
How long does a typical strategic planning consulting engagement take?
Most projects run between 60 to 120 days, depending on the scope, number of teams involved, and the complexity of your sales organization.
How is pricing structured for strategic planning consulting?
Pricing depends on the scale of the engagement, specifically the number of categories, divisions, or teams involved.
What types of companies benefit most from your services?
We specialize in medium and large-sized, enterprise-level consumer goods organizations working with major retailers. Smaller businesses see value in a scaled version leveling up the sales organization or enabling improved market partnerships.
What makes your strategic planning consulting different from traditional sales training?
While sales training builds individual skills, our strategic planning consulting is a higher-level process that unites entire organizations, strengthens retailer relationships, and drives long-term growth strategies rather than short-term wins.
Is strategic planning consulting about finding new customers?
No. Strategic planning is focused on deepening existing relationships with major customers and unlocking greater value from known accounts, not chasing new leads.
Is this approach limited to CPG companies dealing with retailers?
No. Any organization with strategic customers can apply the methodology, and The Maker Group has done this with clients in manufacturing, finance, SaaS, and a number of other industries.
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The Conversation
Our strategic business planning services help clients elevate their strategic value with customers and transform from incremental to exponential growth trajectories.