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The Difference Between Strategies, Tactics + Tools

The Difference Between Strategies, Tactics + Tools

by | Dec 1, 2021 | Strategy

“The best marketing strategy ever: Care.”

~ Gary Vaynerchuck.

I want to share with you my thoughts on the difference between strategy, tactics and tools when it comes to marketing your business and why I think the distinction is important.

Let me start by saying that a simple google search on these terms would bring up a plethora of definitions so if you have a set idea about what these terms mean, I invite you to suspend those for a moment, as I share with you what they mean for me.

In a nutshell, I would say this.

Strategy is your overall approach/plan, tactics are the ways in which you execute that strategy and tools are quite simply what you use to get the job done.

The terms, in and of themselves, are pretty irrelevant. What matters to me and what I’d like to get across to you in this article is the difference between the overall approach (strategy) vs the ways in which you might execute that approach (tactics).

It’s also worth noting that these terms can sometimes feel quite triggering, given how they have been used in the past, so it makes sense that you might feel some resistance as you read them here. Just searching for an appropriate quote about strategy and tactics this morning, kept bring up quotes about war, battle and winning and losing. This is not at all what conscious business is about, with this in mind, I invite you to look past the words and find the meaning I’m giving to them here.

So why is looking at this distinction even important?

Because, in my experience, people get far too focused on tactics and tools and pay scant attention to strategy and approach.

Let me give you some examples to bring this to life.

Strategy = Deliver valuable content that truly serves my audience and demonstrates my expertise.

Tactic = A weekly newsletter.

Tools = Mailchimp (email provider) + Unsplash (for the photo) + The Cabin (for mindful coworking sessions)

Here’s another.

Strategy = Practice authentic outreach to create and deepen relationships with members of my network.

Tactic = Show up and engage in relevant Facebook groups.

Tool = Facebook.

For each of the above “strategies” there are a multitude of tactics I could employ to execute the strategy, but they matter less to me than the strategy itself. What I care about in my business and what I want you to care about in yours is the overall strategy or approach.

Delivering value, being of service and building relationships are my preferred strategies of choice when it comes to growing my business.

People often ask me questions like:

Should I use Facebook or Instagram (tools) to grow my audience?

Should I do pre-recorded videos or live videos (tactics) to deliver my content?

Should I do reels or stories (tactics) to promote my services on Instagram?

The thing with tactics and tools is that they come and go. They go in and out of fashion and with new trends coming up regularly, it’s easy to burn yourself out trying to keep up. If we are trying to keep up with the latest tactic then we’re doing ourselves and our audience a disservice.

I have a thriving business yet I’ve never done an Instagram reel, I’m not on Clubhouse and I only did my first ever Instagram live in June. Rather than try to keep up with tactics and trends, I stay true to my strategy of creating valuable content and choose the tools that feel most aligned with how I want to show up in my business. I ignore the pressure to keep up with what’s trending and as a result let go of all of the shoulds — how liberating!

Do reels look like fun? Yes. Am I intrigued by Clubhouse? Sure. Do I want to spend the time and energy playing around with shiny new things rather than spend that time creating meaningful content for my people? No I don’t.

Evergreen strategies like offering value and developing and deepening relationships don’t go out of fashion. They have been staples of business growth strategy since way before the Internet was born (which was 1983 in case you were wondering) Imagine!

Now I’m not saying don’t play or experiment in your business, heaven forbid!

But I’m fairly certain that if you were to stop for a minute and get really honest with yourself, you would be able to discern between when you are experimenting and when you are grasping for the next magic solution to all your business woes.

What I’d love for you to do today or this week is the following.

Spend some time considering which evergreen strategies you feel called to employ to grow your business (I highly recommend the two I shared above!) and then look at how you want to execute them. Think first about the strategy and second about which tactics or tools feel good to you.

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To Niche Or Not To Niche

To Niche Or Not To Niche

by | Mar 24, 2021 | Business foundations, Strategy

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Whether you pronounce it nitch or you pronounce it neesh (and for the record as a Brit, I say “neesh”), it’s generally accepted that having a clear niche is considered a necessity if you want to get more clients and make money in your business. 

But let’s get real here, niching is hard. 

More than that it can actually feel quite counter-intuitive, especially for conscious, heart-centered types — business owners like you, who are committed to changing the world and having a positive impact on others. Because if the purpose of your business is to do good, why on earth would you want to limit that good to a specific problem and/or group of people?? 

I know I get it, we’ll get to why niching is important later. 

For now, I’m getting ahead of myself, because we haven’t even defined what a niche is. Sure, you could probably give me a definition if I pressed you to, but on a deep down, know in your bones level, how comfortable are you really with the term niche and what the activity of niching actually involves? The truth is, a simple google search will bring up a gazillion different definitions and the dictionary definition I found online which speaks of market segments and specialized areas (yawn), is about as helpful, to the likes of you and I, as a chocolate teapot. 

Here are a few helpful definitions I have found. 

Tad Hargrave calls your niche the role we want to be known for in the marketplace.
George Kao describes your ideal niche as the place where you are offering a service/product that you love, and that others love to buy.
Rebecca Tracey calls your niche the problem you solve and the people you solve it for.
Danielle Gardner splits your niche statement into 3 elements — 1. Who you enjoy helping + 2. What you help them with + 3. Your take on how to approach those challenges and goals. 

All of these descriptions are helpful and what they also point to is the fact that there is no hard definition when it comes to niching, which on one hand is sort of a relief (yay freedom) but on the other hand it can leave us feeling a little confused.

But defining what the term niche means is not the biggest hurdle business owners face when it comes to niching. The biggest hurdle is finding and clearly articulating our own niche. Even when we’re clear on what our niche statement should include, knowing those details for our own business is a whole other matter. 

What adds to this difficulty is the barrage of messages we receive online that tell us, in order to succeed in business you absolutely MUST have a clearly defined niche! Talk about pressure. 

This advice trips so many people up and places them firmly between a rock and a hard place. Because if we believe that we need to have a clear niche to be successful, then we are likely to stop ourselves engaging with the world with our business until we have found the perfect niche.

Goodbye action, hello chronic overthinking.

But guess what’s wrong with this thinking. First of all, there is no perfect niche. It is, in fact, an ever evolving thing and secondly, you won’t come to understand what your niche should be unless you are out there taking action on your business and engaging with potential clients. 

But how can I enrol clients if I don’t have a clear niche? You might ask. 

I had my first $10,000 month many years ago, when my niche was about as clear as mud. Back then, I helped people (all people) overcome their fears (all fears) to live the life of their dreams (all dreams). I worked with people on all sorts of issues from relationships, self-esteem, addictions, business, wanting to travel the world and so much in-between. I coached hundreds of people on a wide range of issues. 

Most marketing experts would have told me that it was impossible to make good money with such a wide (read: absent) niche but I made it work for me. Something that helped all those years ago was reading these words from one of my favorite coaches, Steve Chandler: 

“Most coaching “certification” programs urge novice coaches to find and choose a niche…a specialty!

I have never encountered such counter-productive nonsense. Most of the coaches I know who are extremely successful have no niche at all. A niche would limit them! It would shut them off from many categories of people who are yearning for their help.

I know coaches who emerge from “certification” programs crowing about the niche they have chosen. They have no clients, but they have a niche! “I am going to coach rodeo clowns!” I mean, good luck!

The only time I see a niche working in a coach’s favor is when it emerges on its own…..if you have a certain success in a certain category (and it can happen by accident) you can now go to other people in that category and they are more likely to listen to your success stories. But even then, you don’t have to let it restrict you.”

I eventually decided to become a business coach in much the way Steve describes. Because my coaching business was doing so well, more and more coaches started to ask me to coach them on building their coaching businesses. After several (6+) years of coaching, I realised that this was the work that lit me up most, as well as the area my work seemed to be having the greatest impact and so I made the bold leap of letting go of my successful life coaching business to start from scratch as a business coach for conscious business owners.

Looking back now I’m aware that I couldn’t have known any sooner than I did that this was the niche for me. I had to go through all of those years of coaching to find my sweet spot. 

Why then is it important to have a niche?

You’re probably wondering then if what Steve Chandler says is true and if I can make $10,000 in one month without a clear niche why would you even bother? Well having a well articulated niche can help you in a lot of ways:

  • It makes it easier for people to find you because people are usually searching for support with specific issues rather than general themes.
  • It makes it easier for people to refer you, when you become known for doing that one thing (e.g, ethical marketing) when that topic comes up in conversation, so does your name.
  • It helps you to be in your zone of genius, because you are doing the work you most love to do with the people you most love to do it with, which makes working in your business more enjoyable and what you offer more impactful.
  • It allows you to achieve a level of excellence and master your skills in one area rather than just being good at many things.

Is it possible to make money without a solid niche? In my experience, yes. 
Is it preferable to have a niche? In my opinion, yes!

What to avoid

The biggest mistake in all of this is trying to niche too soon. We tend to tie ourselves in knots when we attempt to pick a niche before we’ve even began the real work of serving our clients or audience. How on earth are you supposed to know a) who you most enjoy working with, b) what topics you most enjoy working on and c) where your greatest strengths lie i.e. where you can be most impactful, when you’ve only worked with a handful of people (or less)?

Here’s the truth — you can’t. So if choosing or clarifying your niche is something that has been holding you back in business here’s what to do instead. 

Experiment widely! 

The best advice I can give here is to EXPERIMENT — try out, play with and try on for size lots of different niches and see what works and what doesn’t. 

List out all the problems you think you can help people with and all the types of people you think you’d enjoy working with and start reaching out and offering complimentary sessions (or doing market research calls) with each of those groups of people in turn.

When I went through this phase in my business, for a while I offered out complimentary coaching sessions to women who struggled to have healthy relationships (and had a few paying clients in this area!), then I spent some time offering sessions to people who would like to give up alcohol (and realised I hated coaching on this topic despite knowing a lot about it, I celebrate 10 years of living alcohol free next year!). Later on in my life coaching business — I offered more and more sessions and resources on business building (which I soon discovered was my absolute fave thing to do — hello business #2!).

Through all of this, I coached a lot of people (and got a lot of coaching practice), I also got a fair amount of paying clients and crucially I came to understand my role in the world — what I most love helping people with (business growth), who I most loved helping (conscious changemakers) AND what qualities and traits my ideal clients have (spiritually inclined, with a tendency for action, combined with a deep desire to change the world). 

It’s only taken close to a decade to get to this, but my niche statement, for what it’s worth, is this.

I coach conscious business owners, such as coaches, healers and teachers, to build and grow successful online businesses, using strategies rooted in integrity,

This is, by no means, a perfect niche statement but allow me to break it down for you.

I use the term conscious to denote a type of person, with a specific way of seeing the world. To understand further, check out my article Conscious Business — What it Is and Why It Matters some people have told me that this word may not be understood by everyone and I therefore shouldn’t use it but here’s one of the keys to niching — my people, not only understand the term but relate to it because it speaks to their spirituality. 

Next, I specify the type of conscious business owner and in doing so demonstrate that I largely work with service providers rather than (hold in your hand) product based businesses. People offering coaching programs, healing sessions, health and wellness services and teachers offering courses, classes and/or other digital offerings. 

I specify that I work with online businesses, also ruling out bricks and mortar businesses because that’s not in my wheelhouse. 

I talk about building and growing which indicates that I not only help people build their businesses from the foundations up but I also help them to grow existing ones. 

And finally, the most important distinguisher for me is that my business coaching focuses on using growth strategies that are rooted in integrity as opposed to the icky and manipulative marketing tactics we all know and hate. 

I share this with you to demonstrate that one simple statement covering the nuance of what you do is possible, but not in a vacuum.

If you feel unclear on your niche and feel like this is holding you back, you absolutely must be out in the world trying out different niches and working with different types of problems and people to find where you fit. 

Your homework

If you’re up for it, I have a challenge for you.

This is something I have my 1:1 coaching clients do and it’s a great way to start working on your niche. Have a think about who and what you most feel called to work with right now.

If you’ve been thinking about 3 or 4 different niches you might do, which of those calls to you the most in this moment? Next I want you to sit down and write a long form post titled: I’m looking for someone… 

Then go ahead and describe that person in as much detail as you can muster. What kind of person are they? What are they struggling with? What might they have tried already? How do they show up in the world? What are their values, traits, characteristics? 

Once you’re happy with the description. add a sentence or two in which you offer a set number of complimentary sessions or calls with people who identify with what you’ve written and then go ahead and share it everywhere you can, with your subscribers, Facebook fans, Instagram followers and anywhere else your ideal client might be hanging out.

For one of the best examples of this I’ve seen, check out this post from one of my former clients. 

So there you have my thoughts on niching, if you have any questions or thoughts on what I’ve shared in this article, please drop them in the comments below. 

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Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity.

The contents offer a more conscious way to see an old issue. Soulful strategies to bring more integrity into the way you do business and permission to do things in a way that feels good to your soul. 

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Quit Doing This (For The Sake Of Your Sanity + Success)

Quit Doing This (For The Sake Of Your Sanity + Success)

by | Apr 3, 2020 | Strategy

“Strategy is thinking about a choice and choosing to stick with your thinking.”

~ Jeroen De Flander

At the end of 2019, I gave birth to my second son. On the whole, his arrival went fairly smoothly. Having gone through it all before, the nappy changes, sleepless nights and near constant breastfeeding were a lot easier to handle this time round. The big difference, however, was having a toddler to contend with at the same time. I’d like to share something about this experience that I think can teach us something valuable about business.

Initially our 3yr old struggled significantly with the arrival of his little brother and started to really act out, becoming extremely defiant and prone to angry and even aggressive outbursts. As parents, we struggled to know what to do for the best and talking to friends and family, as well as looking online for answers, only made us more confused. So much conflicting advice! One article or person would extol the importance of being even more patient and loving during this time of transition, whereas others would argue the case for firm discipline to nip unwanted behaviour in the bud.

Unsure which strategy to follow, we were torn and switched back and forth between the two, which as you might imagine got us nowhere fast and simply exacerbated the problem. Eventually, catching on to the fact that we weren’t being consistent we settled on an approach that felt good to us (think more love and understanding than time-outs and punishment). Since embracing one approach wholeheartedly, we have seen our sweet little boy return back to his confident, loving and happy self (don’t get me wrong — he still has the occasional tantrum!).

What we realised was that when we committed to one strategy and continued on that path, even when it felt like it wasn’t working (because all the love and understanding in the world can’t calm some meltdowns), we eventually started to see the results of our consistency — a happier and more secure little boy.

This got me thinking about business (of course!) and a mistake I see many business owners making, to the detriment of their success (and sanity!). This mistake is what I call strategy switching and I invite you to quit doing it in 2020.

Strategy switching goes something like this.

You’re feeling stuck in your business, you’re desperate to start making decent money and you read something online about a quick-fix magic pill, strategy that will, by all accounts, solve all of your business and money problems.

So you implement it, you try it for a few weeks, you get a far less than overwhelming response, you feel disappointed and discouraged and so you lose interest. Then before you know it, you happen upon another strategy, full of promises of overnight success, and you leap head first into that only for the sad, sorry cycle to repeat itself.

When we do this in business, we fail.

Not only that but we feel like shit. We start to believe that there is something wrong with us and we struggle to understand why these strategies seem to be working for everyone else but us.

Don’t be fooled by stories of overnight success.

They are one of the most dangerous lies we are sold online. Now don’t get me wrong, some people do experience rapid success but it’s a tiny minority. If you consider some of your current online business heroes right now, my bet is that they have been in business for 10 years or more. They are where they are because they’ve been in it for the long haul. (See this enlightening post by one of my favourite business owners for further proof of this.)

If they are successful you can also bet that that they didn’t suffer from a bad case of strategy switching. You might even be able to identify the strategy that they chose, focused in on and stuck with for years that led to their huge success.

Think Seth Godin and blogging,

Gary Vaynerchuck and videos,

Susannah Conway and newsletters and so many more.

Choosing a sound strategy and sticking to it is the best way to achieve success.

But how do we know if the strategy is working if we don’t see immediate results?

The answer: Go deep. Get scientific. Aim for mastery.

If you’ve decided to take on a strategy, let’s use the example of creating content to grow your audience, for example, then you want to focus all your energy on becoming the best content creator you can. Once you’ve got into a solid and consistent rhythm of creating content, if you find that you’re not getting the response you hoped for then instead of giving up and switching strategy, look at all the possible reasons why.

Perhaps you’re not sharing it widely enough? Are you sharing it in as many places you can? Are you asking other people to share it? Are you investing in advertising that content? Once you’ve done everything you can to make sure your content is as visible as it can possibly be and you’re still not getting the engagement or traction you had hoped for, then look for all the possible reasons that might be.

Do you need to improve your writing skills? Are your titles boring and uninviting? Are you writing about topics your audience don’t care about? Could you ask someone you trust for feedback? Have you done enough audience research to know what topics your people want to hear about?

It’s my bet that if you take a strategy that has been proven to work and you apply it well and consistently you should see results. If not, don’t throw the towel in, instead refine how you are executing the strategy, tweak it, improve it, hone your skills and/or get feedback.

 

 There is one caveat to this Just because a strategy has worked well for others, doesn’t mean that it will necessarily work well for you. If we stick with the example of content creation, just because it’s a tried and tested approach that has helped countless business owners achieve high levels of success, doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you, if, for example, you really hate creating content.

Another mistake I see many business owners make is to try and force themselves to implement a strategy that doesn’t feel good to them or that isn’t suited to their skills, expertise and aptitude. It’s vital, therefore that before committing to any single strategy, that you take time to consider if it’s the right strategy for you. I have always loved writing and have been blogging in one way or another since 2011, so it makes sense for me to choose content creation in the form of writing as one of my key business growth strategies.

My other half, for example, is not a big writer at all, but he’s a people person so a strategy that brings him great success in his work is speaking and networking events, which is not my bag at all but give him a room and a stage to speak on and within no time he’ll have the majority of people wanting what he’s selling.

Taking time to choose a strategy, that is not only sound, but suited to you and then doing what it takes to execute it well over time is the surest way to start seeing results.

For more on strategy switching, check out this video I made last year.

 

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

7 Ways to Uplevel Your Business in 2020

7 Ways to Uplevel Your Business in 2020

by | Nov 28, 2019 | Strategy

“No matter where you are in your leadership journey, never forget that what got you to where you are won’t get you to the next level.”

~ John C. Maxwell

As we near the end of 2019, it’s important to take some time to think about what you might do to uplevel your business in 2020. In this post, I share 7 key steps that have the potential to see your business grow and improve over the coming year.

1. Uplevel your systems and processes
As your business grows, in order to deliver a more professional service to your clients and customers, as well as avoid drowning in admin and overwhelm, you’ll need to put in place efficient systems and process. I use several tools to automate time-consuming tasks and make the customer journey more seamless (and my life easier!) To find out what tools I currently use head here.

In 2020, after hearing glowing reviews from several of my colleagues, I’m going to start using business management tool, Dubsado, which does in one, what many of my other tools do separately. I’m a big believer in getting your systems and processes set up sooner rather than later – it’s much better to grow into a system than wait until you’re in a hot mess to put one in retrospectively.

Action: Take some time now to brainstorm any and all of the business tasks you could automate, develop a process for or create a system around to make your life easier and that of your customers. If there is a task and you’re not sure what tool or system to use, head on over to my free group on Facebook and write a post asking for recommendations.

2. Create a Strategic Plan 
There is no denying it, I am a planner and I’m in no doubt how important planning is to the future growth and success of your business. You’d be pretty hard pushed to find a successful business out there that doesn’t take some serious time and effort on planning. And when I say plan, I don’t mean just setting some pie in the sky, ambitious goals, I’m talking about creating a plan that is strategically sound. One that takes your ambition and vision for the future and provides a solid strategy for how to get there.

What this means in practice is rather than simply set yourself the goal to make $50K this year, you sit down and figure out exactly what you need to do in order to make that happen, how many sales of what specific offerings you need to make and what size of audience you’ll need to have, as well as what specific actions you’ll take to bring those sales about.

Action: Get a strategic plan in place before the year is out which contains your financial goals, business goals and strategic priorities. Want to use my Business Planner + Blueprint? Head here or for a free one-page business plan PDF head here.

3. Activate your network 
Personally, I believe this is one of the most important (and overlooked) things you can do to help your business soar next year. Activating your network essentially means taking regular action to be in connection with and of service to members of your audience. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Try reaching out to ask if someone needs your support, recommend a resource that you know could help them, check-in to see how they are. I often refer to this as outreach and you can read some of my best tips on how to do this here and here.

Action: Read this post and choose 3 of the strategies given and make a plan to implement them in early 2020.

4. Create and implement a content schedule
I must admit that in the early days of entrepreneurship, I completely underestimated the importance of content as a means to grow my business, as well as a way to connect with my audience, demonstrate my expertise, be of service and express my unique business point of view. Since rectifying this a year or so ago, by making content creation such a priority that I have 90 minutes a day for it scheduled in my calendar, business has boomed. It’s that important.

Action: Think about what content you could create for your audience that would help to demonstrate your expertise and be of value to your ideal clients. Brainstorm article or post ideas and then implement a schedule to not only publish them but to distribute them as widely as possible. (I’ll be writing a more detailed article to help you with this soon!)

5. Find collaborators and partners
A lot of people overlook the importance of connecting with people as part of their business activities and those who do value its importance, tend to focus on connection with potential clients and customers (i.e. their audience). What often gets overlooked, but that has the potential to grow your business immeasurably, is collaborating and partnering with other people in your industry or related industries.

Getting yourself in front of other people’s audiences is an essential key to growing your own audience and therefore your revenue. There are various ways to do this including, but not limited to, being on someone else’s podcast, doing a guest post for one of the big name online publications such as Elephant Journal or Tiny Buddha or doing a collaboration with a peer (such as this one I did with Helen McLaughlin). If you are not regularly connecting with peers in your industry and getting yourself in front of other people’s audiences you’re missing a huge trick.

Action: Brainstorm people and places that it would serve your business to connect with and then go and connect. If you are approaching a person, remember that the most important thing is to connect and build a relationship free from expectation, if the person feels you are just connecting just to get something from them, it will be a disaster. Connect with a genuine and open heart and you’ll see the difference.

6. Monitor your finances 
I know this one isn’t particularly exciting but you wouldn’t believe how many business owners I talk to who don’t know how much money they are making on a month by month basis nor do they set regular financial goals.

This is one of those things that people early on in business tend to avoid because they feel shame about the numbers. When it’s such a small amount it doesn’t always seem worth the effort but here’s the thing, putting your focused energy on your financial situation is a sure-fire way to bring about change. So as much as it might pain you to do it, record your business income and outgoings (no matter how small or non-existent they are) and be sure to set monthly financial goals.

Action: Schedule some time to sit with your finances from this year. You’ll want to figure out how much you made this year from your business and how much it cost you to run your business (think web hosting, software costs etc). Once you have those figures, think about what you would like to increase that number to in 2020. Note that it could be a deficit (which is normal in the early days). Once you have that figure, take some time to figure out how many of your products and services you would need to sell in order to make that amount a reality.

7. Grow your audience 
Easier said than done, but if you don’t have a clear audience growth strategy, then any effort you are making on content creation and marketing is likely going to waste. I hate the term funnel, but I do know the importance of sitting down and looking at the journey people need to make from not knowing you at all to buying from you and finding ways to make this journey easier and more impactful for your people.

If you find that you are marketing and creating content for a small number of people and that number isn’t growing then you are really going to struggle to see a growth in your income.

Action: Take some time now to map out all the ways people find you and what you do to then deepen the relationship with those people. For example, I create content, which I then share widely (through repurposing and advertising) and then when people engage with that content, I reach out to connect and offer my support, oftentimes that leads to a complimentary coaching session and oftentimes, those sessions are so powerful that they lead to the enrolment of a client. There is no manipulation or pressure tactics, just being of service and offering value every step of the way and in doing so making it easy for people to make the decision to buy from me.

And there you have it, 7 ways to take things to the next level with your business in 2020 and 7 actions to get you started.

If you know you may need support to implement some of these effectively, then do consider applying for the Conscious Business Mastermind, which will run for 9 months next year and is the most affordable way to get my eyes on and support on your business. In the mastermind we’ll be looking at all of these growth strategies and so much more. Head here for the full details and to complete a form to express your interest

Getting Clear on Your Sales Strategy

Getting Clear on Your Sales Strategy

by | Apr 26, 2019 | Selling, Strategy

“Communication is merely an exchange of information, but connection is an exchange of our humanity.”

~ Sean Stephenson

 

I share lots of different strategies in my blog posts and weekly letters but in this post I want to focus in on getting clear on and really defining your sales strategy, which is, if you think about it, one of the most important business strategies you’ll ever implement. Because without sales there is no business.

So before we dive in, take a moment and feel into your answer to this question:

What is your sales strategy?

Take a moment. Really think about it. What strategy do you employ in your business to get a steady flow of sales?

If this question sees you umming and ahhing then I encourage you to read on.

First of all, there is no shame in not having a clear answer to this question and if you do, I applaud you and would love you to head to the comments now and share your strategy with us. But for those of you that don’t have a crystal clear answer at hand. I get it. With so much competing advice out there on the internet about how to build and grow a successful business, what I see most often is this.

Overwhelmed business owners trying to do all of the things and wondering why nothing is working.

Trying to blog, do newsletters, sales funnels, welcome sequences, Instagram stories, Facebook advertising, free challenges, webinars, podcasts, free sessions, freebie opt-ins, networking and, and, and!

The problem with this is that when we fail to go deep on any one strategy, we fail to achieve mastery and we therefore don’t see the results we’re hoping for. My recommendation for you here is to spend some time seriously contemplating what your sales strategy could be. What strategy you’ll invest your time, energy and focused attention on, consistently.

Your final sales strategy might be a combination of steps but it must be a departure from your current habit of throwing things at the wall in the hope that something will stick. It’s also advisable that you choose something that you feel you can commit to over the long haul. Strategies only work if a) they are sound (i.e. fit for purpose) and b) we apply them consistently over time. 

I can’t tell you how many times someone has said, in response to a suggested strategy, “oh yeah I tried that and it didn’t work” and on further investigation, it becomes clear that “tried” meant did it two or three times. It takes time to see results, it’s important that you give adequate time and effort to whatever strategy you choose before jumping on to the next new shiny thing.

What makes a good sales strategy?

A good sales strategy has the following components:

  • It should cultivate meaningful connection with your right-fit people.
  • It should contain systems or processes that effectively filter out those people who aren’t a fit.
  • It must regularly and consistently expose you to new people who fit your ideal client profile.
  • It has to have you make a connection with those new people and then take them on a journey to better know, like and trust you.
  • It has to support those people to make an empowered (rather than manipulated) decision about whether to buy from you or not. 
  • It has to be something that you can do consistently that can therefore produce consistent results.
  • It should be clear and relatively simple to execute.
  • It should feel good to your soul.

One of the best ways to get an insight into the most effective sales strategy for you is to analyse how you’ve made sales in the past. When we can get clear on that and then refine what we know has worked for us in the past to make it replicable and consistent, we’re that much closer to finding a strategy we can rely on.

The problem I see with much of the advice about sales strategy on the Internet is that it feels manipulative and contrived and leaves little room for cultivating meaningful connection and deepening relationships with our audience. We’re encouraged to set up complicated and automated sales funnels that automates our audience through a series of steps that ultimately seeks to convince them to buy from us at the end (often called the squeeze!). Whether it’s in their best interest to or not.

I don’t advocate this. I advocate sales strategies that are rooted in integrity and that cultivate true connection and serve our people powerfully whether they choose to buy from us or not. I fully support putting the person before the sale.

An example of a conscious sales strategy 

In a nutshell my current sales strategy is: to connect with more of my right-fit people and then serve them so powerfully that they want to go deeper with me.

What this looks like on a more practical level is as follows:

  1. Create meaningful and consistent content that expresses my business point of view and shares a more conscious approach to business growth.
  2. Share that content widely and frequently. (I’m currently doing, and highly recommend, this course to learn how to increase my reach even further).
  3. Connect with the people who engage with that content (my right-fit people) and looks for ways to serve and be of value to those people. AND also practice authentic outreach.
  4. Where appropriate and/or once a deeper relationship has been established, invite people to have a complimentary coaching session with me.
  5. On those sessions, do everything I can to serve the person in front of me powerfully.

Then one of two things will happen.

  1. They will ask me what it looks like to work with me, in which case I will set up a separate call to discuss that (I make sure not to squeeze that conversation into the last 5 minutes of a coaching call) or
  2. They won’t ask me. If the latter happens and I didn’t feel a connection, I’ll wish them all the best and end the call. But if I know that the coaching had an impact and they benefited from the call (they will tell me if it did), then I might ask them to leave a testimonial on my Facebook page or I might ask them if they know someone who might benefit from having a similar call or if I feel exited to, I might offer them a second complimentary session.

I can’t tell you how many people have hired me months or years after a receiving one or more complimentary coaching sessions from me. Whichever way it goes, I always make sure that I keep in touch with the people who I felt a connection with, sometimes they become friends, sometimes they become collaborators, sometimes they refer clients to me and sometimes they become clients. Whatever type of connection is made, I do my best to deepen it over time. 

And essentially that’s it. I don’t have anything more complicated than that, I make connections, I try to serve powerfully and I trust that if we’re a fit then we’ll work together, maybe not right away but at some point. I should add that I do also make sure that I remind myself to regularly let my audience know what my offerings are. Scheduling my content helps with this because I can make sure for every 8-9 pieces of free content I put out, I can share something about a paid offering. Nothing pushy or salesy, just a transparent and authentic post about how people can go deeper with me. 

If you are keen to create your own sales strategy with a view to achieving a steady and consistent flow of new business in a way that feels good to the soul and you want to go deeper with me on the topic, simply drop me a line at caroline@carolineleon.com and I’ll do what I can to support you. 

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Five ways to get more consistent in your business

Five ways to get more consistent in your business

by | Apr 19, 2019 | Strategy

“Consistency is the true foundation of trust. Either keep your promises or do not make them.” 

~ Roy T. Bennett

I’m pretty sure that you’ve already heard (several times probably) just how important consistency is in your business. Just how necessary it is to show up in people’s inboxes and news feeds on a regular and consistent basis. You may even be convinced of the arguments for consistency, but try as you might, you still struggle to achieve a consistent level of output in your work. I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. This is the number one thing I see most business owners struggling with.

The majority of small businesses owners fail to show up consistently in their business whether that’s taking consistent actions aligned with the achievement of business goals or producing content on a regular basis (choosing instead to show up whenever they feel a flash of inspiration). This is all every well for a hobby but if you want to create a successful business that works and provides you with consistent income, you have to become consistent in how you show up for your business. In my experience there is a clear link between the consistency of your output and the consistency of your income.

It’s for this reason that in this post, I want to share five ways I’ve learned to get more consistent in business. But before we get to that, let’s just look at why consistency is so important. People buy from people they know, like and trust. When we operate with consistency, whether that’s in our content creation or our outreach efforts, it allows more people to know us and it allows the people who do know us to like and trust us more.

Put another way, when it comes to your audience, consistency equates to trustworthiness (doing what you said you would do) and reliability (allowing people to rely on you). If we consider the other side of this, when we show up inconsistently, our audience is much more likely to wonder if we are for real. If we can be trusted and if we are reliable enough to invest in. 

Understand your resistance to consistency 

This is a big one. As a Business Coach, I’ve seen first hand just how much resistance comes up when I bring up the topic of consistency to business owners and I get it, it often requires a greater commitment, more courage and a dedication to our work that we haven’t managed to muster previously.

Understanding why you feel resistance is crucial and might require that you reframe what being consistent means to you.

For example, perhaps currently you see it as something that threatens your creativity. If I force myself to write on a schedule, my words don’t flow and my work suffers. What if instead you saw consistent content creation as a way to master your craft and improve your work and your ability to focus (with the added benefit of deepening the relationship you have with your audience)? Perhaps you see it as a threat to your freedom. If I have to show up consistently I forfeit the freedom to do what I want on any given day. What if instead you saw consistency as a route to even greater freedom? Once a habit in formed, the effort required to do the work is far less. Suddenly writing a weekly newsletter feels simple and fun, rather than laborious and painstaking. 

Is there another way to look at consistency that doesn’t leave you feeling constricted and trapped?

Pick one thing to be super consistent with

Where many people fail here is trying to be consistent across the board in their business. They have a list of things that they are trying to be consistent in all at the same time. Newsletter writing, publishing blog posts, writing daily social media posts (across multiple channels!), recording weekly videos and, and, and…you get the idea!

My suggestion here, is that you take one thing, work at getting consistent at that one thing and once you have a pretty well established habit, move onto the next thing. Let me share how this plays out in my business. At the start of this year I set myself several content creation goals, including sending weekly newsletters and publishing weekly blog posts. I knew that, for me, getting into a consistent rhythm with both at the same time was going to be tricky given how busy I am so I decided to focus on one thing. My number one priority up until last month was to never miss sending out my weekly newsletter (so far so good!). Once I felt that this had become completely integrated into my weekly routine, I decided it was time to get consistent with my blog post writing, which led to my decision to do a 30-day challenge, in which I would write 30 posts in 30 days (in case you’re wondering this is post 19 of that 30). After this challenge, I know that writing one post a week will feel like a breeze! And once I achieve a level of consistency in that, I’ll move on to another of my priorities, consistent outreach.

The key is to focus. Pick one thing and work on getting consistent with that until it becomes part of your daily or weekly routine.

Publicly state your commitment 

I use this strategy often in my business and that is to publicly share my goals and commitments with colleagues, peers, clients and audience members, so that when I sit down at my desk and the resistance to do what I said I would inevitably arises, I remember just how many people I’ve shared my goal with and it encourages me to get over my niggly self doubts and get the job done.

This is precisely what I did with this content creation challenge and I can promise you, if there weren’t so many people aware of the challenge or involved in it, I’m fairly certain I would have missed a day or two by now. On the days it’s felt the hardest to write (today just so happens to be one of those days), I remember how many people I might inspire, help or reach if I follow through with my goal.

Put it on your calendar

At the beginning of every year, I get out my Business Planner and set my strategic priorities for my business. My two main priorities for 2019 are content creation and outreach. Both of these have recurring slots on my daily calendar. Every morning between 9-10.30am, I have content creation scheduled in my calendar. Most afternoons, between 5-6.30pm, I have a spot reserved for coaching/outreach, that is if I don’t have coaching calls book, that time is to be used to reach out and connect with people.

I recognised at the end of last year that if I wanted to take my business to the next level, I needed to get far more consistent at these two things and that’s why they each have a prominent, recurring slot on my calendar. I’d like you consider what the most important thing for you to get consistent at in your business is? Then ask yourself is that adequately reflected in your calendar?

Don’t break the chain  

Jerry Seinfeld, one of the most prolific comedy writers of our time, attributes his global success to the fact that he would write every day using a technique that has become known as the Don’t Break The Chain technique.

At the beginning of each year Seinfeld would hang a large year-at-a-glance calendar above his desk and for every day that he successfully sat down and wrote, he would mark that day on the calendar with a big red X. Before long he would have a chain of Xs and the goal would become to not break break the chain. I’ve found you don’t need to have a calendar for this. I know, for example, that I haven’t missed a weekly letter so far this year or a daily blog post this month, I don’t need to see a string of Xs to know that I don’t want to break that chain.

The truth is that consistency requires practice and patience. You need time for a habit to becomes so ingrained that it no longer requires so much effort from you. But I swear it gets easier. After my first week of blog posts, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I could write another 23, the effort it had taken to write 7 felt gargantuan. Yet here I am at post 19, with a deep knowing that I’ll achieve my goal. Is it still hard work to write every day? Sure! But having done so for 19 days in a row, it’s also now feels normal, it’s a part of my every day.

So how about you, where in your business would it serve you and your clients/audience is you showed up more consistently? 

It doesn’t have to be content creation (although I would argue this should be a priority), it might be consistently reaching out to people, or consistently working on your business.  If you feel called to let me know what it is for you, just drop me a line in the comments below.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I’m learning about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.