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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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Five Things I Ask All New Clients To Do

Five Things I Ask All New Clients To Do

by | Sep 15, 2021 | Big picture, Business model, Planning

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

After opening up a number of new coaching spots on my calendar, resulting in having several first sessions with new clients. It dawned on me that it might be useful to share with you the five things I always focus on with new clients to make the best use of our time together. These are, in my opinion, five of the most important things we need to work on to ensure the best chance of success. I should warn you this is a long one but definitely worth working through.

1. Activate your network

Nine times out of ten, one of the pieces of homework to fall out of the first session with a new client is to do my outreach challenge in order to activate their network.

We all have a network, whether we think we do or not. Our network includes all sorts of people:

  • Colleagues — people we are working with or have worked with (either in a former job or with our current business),
  • People in our audience — our followers, subscribers and consumers of our content,
  • Our clients — former, current and potential,
  • People we admire — the people in our industry who we follow, our mentors, the people who inspire us.
  • Personal — friends, family and general supporters of our work.

When we are busy working on our business, we tend to let some of these relationships go quiet, we forget to keep in touch and as a result our network becomes dormant. Activating our network means keeping these connections alive. Reminding people that we are here. Being of service to our network and becoming front of mind for people. This way they are more likely to think of you when someone they know is struggling with the very struggle you help people to overcome. It not only makes good business sense but it also feels good to be connected.

The challenge in a nutshell is to reach out to 50 people in 7 days simply just to check in, free from agenda and with the sole purpose of connecting or re-connecting. For the full instructions (which I highly recommend you follow if you want to take on the challenge) click here. Be sure to watch this video before getting started.

2. Set up your ideal schedule

When people first start working with me it’s quite common that their schedule or calendar isn’t as organised or as optimised as it could be. I usually start by inviting my clients to consider what their ideal schedule would be and answer questions like:

  • What timetable do you want to have? What days will you work? What days will you have OFF? What will be your working hours? When will you take breaks?
  • On which days do you want to do client calls? Is your calendar wide open to your clients or do you only want to do live calls on certain days or at certain times of the day?
  • What key activities will you schedule in each week? When will you do outreach? When will you create content? When will you check email?

I usually walk them through my schedule using the ideal schedule I’ve created in my Google Calendar, which you can see below.

Initially some people find my schedule overwhelming because every space is blocked off but it needn’t feel overwhelming. As I always say to my clients, if you set up your schedule to include everything that needs to get done including the breaks you need to take then you’re creating the conditions for success.

If Monday afternoon at 2pm rolls around and your schedule says check email and you really want to work on some content you can always move things around, but having things scheduled in, shows you at a glance what needs to get done over the course of the week.

One area I’d encourage you not to move is your breaks. If you’re in the flow it can be very tempting to stay at your desk and work through your breaks but I do believe you pay the price later on with a lessened ability to focus and inevitably less energy. Breaks are essential to maintain our focus and energy throughout the day.

3. Create a content schedule

Consistent content creation is one of the first things I like to get my clients started on if they are not doing it already. One of the most important steps you can take on your journey to consistent content creation is to create a content schedule. Whilst many people think that scheduling their content is a sure fire way to stifle their creativity, I assure you that if you give this a try you may be very surprised by the results. To create your content schedule you’ll need to follow these 3 steps:

1. Choose your channels. Rather than have 5 or 6 channels you show up inconsistently on choose 1–3 channels to show up on. If you are just starting out with content, I would recommend getting started with one channel and not adding in another until you are consistent with that one.

2. Choose your rhythm. Once you’ve chosen where you’ll share your content, you’ll need to consider when you want to publish content. Take into account that with one new piece of content a week, you can publish far more frequently than that simply by repurposing.

3. Create your plan. Your plan should bring together the where and when, (as determined above) with the what of your content. Your overall plan might then look something like this, which you can then populate with actual topic ideas later on.

 

4. Plan out your year

I invite all my clients and Mastermind participants to create an annual business plan at the start of the year, but no matter when someone starts working with me, if they haven’t already, I invite them to set an overall objective for the rest of the year, up to 3 strategic priorities to help them achieve that objective plus a set of simple goals under each priority.

To give you an example of what that looks like in practice, here are mine for this year.

My overall business aim for 2021: To put in place the systems, services and products to scale the success I’ve achieved in 2020 to double my annual income without working more than 7 hours a day.

My Strategic Priorities:
1. Systems
2. Business Model
3. Products

The goals under each:
Systems: 1. Make Notion my business hub. 2. Get SOPs in place. 3. Streamline software and apps. 4. Improve and streamline client improvement.
Business Model: 1. Deliver workshop plan. 2. Retain 30% of current Mastermind participants and get glowing testimonials. 3. Maintain full roster of 1:1 clients with increased rate.
Products: 1. Research, design and deliver a new product or products that can bring in passive income.

5. Simplify their business model.

Last but not least, I usually invite my new clients to simplify their existing business model. Many business owners fall into the trap of thinking that the more they offer the better their chances are of getting the sale. I’ve actually found the opposite to be true and that the more simple my business model is, the more money I make because it’s easy for people to access and choose how they want to work with me.

What we usually do is close down any service that isn’t bringing in regular income to allow us to focus on the service or services that are or that we want to be.

So there you have it, 5 things I work on with new clients so that we can then continue the journey together with the essentials addressed. Each of these could be a whole article in itself but I hope you have enough information here to have a look at each of these in turn and take some action to better set yourself up for success.

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.