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If you're a solo business owner and you have been faithful, creating content, posting it on social media, doing all the things that you feel will help you get to your destination, but nothing's really happening. Something is broken. And in this podcast episode, I'm going to talk about the difference between strategy and tactic. Stay tuned.

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From burnout to breakthrough.

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Hello, hello, and welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I am your host, Marissa Shadrick, AI marketing strategist and certified copywriter. And today we're going to get right into it and we're going to talk about the difference between strategy and tactic. Why? Because those two words are often used interchangeably and they're very, very different. And it may be the very reason why you're not seeing the traction or you're not reaching your destination. So I'm going to walk you through step by step and give you a clear definition of the two, give you some examples so that you can go in and self-audit your strategy, your marketing, and see where there's some misalignment. A strategy is the big picture planning. This takes a little bit of time to kind of see what it is that you're trying to accomplish with your business. Whereas the tactic is the day-to-day doing. It's the actions that you take. Strategy is a long-term vision, whereas tactic is a short-term action. Strategy defines the why, the why you're in business. The tactic executes on the how you're going to do it. The strategy is hard to copy by your competitors. It's unique to your brand. It is your brand voice. It is your mission. All of those things that make up your business. That is hard to copy. Whereas tactics are often replicated because many people use similar tactics to reach their destination or their goal. Strategy sets a destination. So with a strategy, when you're thinking about your business, there is somewhere you're trying to get to. There is a goal, there is a destination. You're trying to achieve something at the very end. The tactic chooses the route. So when you think about strategy, say when I moved from California to Tennessee, our goal, our destination was Tennessee. The tactic would have been the route that we chose, the stops that we made. Maybe we had to detour. That is the tactic. But the destination never changed. The destination was already set. Strategy is very stable and it's very foundational. It is the cornerstone, the plumb line. Whereas the tactic is very flexible and adjustable. The strategy is driven by purpose, your values, your mission, and so forth. Whereas the tactic is driven by performance. It's something that you can measure, something that you can review. It's typically in the form of analytics, the open rates, right? The um organic traffic that you receive on your website. Those are all connected to tactics. Now, the common mistake is to think that the tactic is a strategy. So mistaking tools and platforms like social media as a strategy is a common mistake. It's not really your strategy. And we'll go over what strategy is, but here's another common mistake: having disjointed tactics without an intentional clear goal. You can't just start posting on social media without knowing what you're going to do on social media. Every platform should have a reason why you're there. For example, I'm on LinkedIn, so I have a specific goal for what LinkedIn is going to provide for me. And that is a tool that I use. And so if you're on Instagram or if you're on Facebook, what is the outcome that you want from being on that platform? How is that tool or that platform going to help you achieve your goal or reach the destination? Right? I often say there it's like having little employees. What are all these tools and platforms going to do to increase the bottom line? Another mistake is feeling productive without making progress because you've mistaken tactics for strategy. So in order to get some clarity around this, I'm going to give you some examples of what strategy is, and then give you some examples of tactic because these two are very, very different. And you have to understand that strategy doesn't change much, but the tactics can. So here are nine examples of strategy. Number one, the positioning strategy. This is basically what you want to be known for, how you want to be set apart from your competitors. So in order to do that, you need to do a little competitor research and figure out how you're different. And that may align with your experience, your background, and your skills. Number two, brand strategy. Clarify your mission, your values, the tone and the visual identity you want connected with your brand. This helps build that emotional connection and trust. So the brand strategy is important and that's part of your overall strategy. Number three, audience strategy. Choose a specific niche. You've heard this before, like who are you serving? Because if you have a funnel and you have a plan to execute, but you don't know who you're serving and who you're targeting, it's not going to be very successful. So audience strategy is choosing the specific niche that you'll serve and building the messaging around that so they can self-identify and understand that you're speaking to them in free content, in offers. You want to be able to understand their pain points and their aspirations. Number four is visibility strategy. And this is simply deciding on what you're going to do on a consistent basis to get in front of new audiences. Are you going to be posting short videos? Are you going to be speaking from stage? Are you going to be perhaps trying to be a podcast guest on other podcasts? What is the visibility strategy that you've chosen? Are you decided to maybe have Facebook ads? What are you going to do to get in front of your people? Number five is content strategy. What type of content, whether it's written or if it's in audio form or in video form, are you going to create? Is it going to teach? Is it going to inspire? Is it going to be entertaining? You have to map out the customer journey as well and figure out is it going to be something that helps beginners, intermediate, or advance? What type of content is it going to be? Number six is email marketing strategy. What are you going to do to nurture your email subscribers? Are you going to create a newsletter? How are you going to continue to build relationships and earn their trust through email marketing? Are you going to set up automations? Are you going to use more storytelling? All of this is part of the strategy that you need to think about ahead of time. Number seven is monetization strategy. How are you going to earn money? Are you going to have digital courses? Are you going to be a consultant or a coach? Are you going to maybe offer a membership? How are you going to do this? Are they going to be low-end offers or high-end offers? All of this is important to figure out how you're going to bring in revenue. You can have multiple ways, but you need to think about this ahead of time so everything becomes very seamless. Number eight is partnerships and collaboration strategy. Are you going to identify certain partners, perhaps people or other businesses where the audience is aligned, but you're not competing against each other? Would you be able to promote each other's products or services? Are you going to collaborate with other business partners where you can expand your reach without adding more to your plate? This is something to consider because it's often the way that we grow our business is through partnerships. And number nine is the client experience strategy. How are you going to show up for your clients? How is it that you're going to wow them? What is it that you're going to provide? What is it that maybe will be different about your clients working with you than working with someone else? What's that first impression all the way to the testimonial look like? Think of your clients and how you want to be remembered. And this is an important strategy to consider as well. So now that you understand strategy a little better, you can see why this doesn't really change much. Your strategy remains like a foundation for your business. But now, how are we going to execute? That's where we start to look at tactics. It's the how we're going to reach our goal or our destination based on the strategy we created. So let me give you an example of tactics that are not strategy and often get confused for strategy. Number one is posting daily on social media. That is a tactic. That's a means to an end. That's how we're going to be able to reach our destination because of the strategy that we've created. So it's not a strategy in itself, it's a tactic. Consistent posting is valuable, but without a defined objective or a target audience, it becomes activity without direction. And you're going to do a lot of work and not be able to get traction. So social media has to have a purpose. Each platform has to have a purpose, which is why I often recommend choosing one platform where you can show up and you can comment and you can respond to comments and you can DM people because it takes a lot of work. And if you're spread too thin and you have a lot of social media platforms, then it's a lot of work because you're not being very personal to that platform. You're trying to generalize and just post everywhere. And some content does well on one platform, but it doesn't do as well on another. So the more specific you can be with the content you create for a specific social media platform, the better it is. But this is still a tactic. Tactic number two that often gets confused to be a strategy, but is a tactic is content creation. So when you're creating blogs and videos and podcasts, you need to have a strategy behind it because that is a means to an end. The blog post is a tactic, the video is a tactic, the podcast is a tactic. And so when you create content, you're thinking about that end goal, you're thinking about that destination, you're thinking about the strategy and why you chose that piece of content to produce it. Otherwise, you're going to have a lot of inconsistent branding. You'll post on one thing or you'll create content on another, it's going to be here and there, it's going to miss, and it's not going to be aligned to your strategy. Tactic number three that often gets confused for strategy is networking. Networking is fabulous. Relationship marketing is fantastic, but that is a tactic. It's not a strategy. So when you go to networking events or you go to conferences and you're saying, I'm going to be networking, that's my strategy. It's not, it's a tactic. But what happens is it oftentimes it lacks the follow-up. So it's a tactic that's being used, but it's not completed if it doesn't have follow-up. So attending events or joining online groups without a system in place to be able to nurture those new connections are missed opportunities. Here's tactic number four. And you probably think this is a strategy, but launching a product without market research is really a tactic. Because when you introduce a new offer, even a free offer, without validating the demand or understanding your customer, it's going to lead to failure because you have to consider why you're launching a product. And you have to go back to your strategy and understand your audience and your customer to figure out what it is you're going to offer. Just by looking to see what other people are offering and try to replicate that, their tactic, is not going to necessarily bring you that revenue that you're looking for. It has to be very aligned to your strategy. Oftentimes people see people selling digital products and they'll see something and they'll think it's so simple. Oh, I could do the same thing and I can make some money selling this thing. But if it's misaligned and it's not aligned with your strategy, there's going to be some brand confusion there. Tactic number five is using AI tools, which is a great tactic, but without a clear purpose, it's not going to really help you. You can see now from what I've said so far about strategy and understanding exactly your business and what sets you apart and the niche audience you're serving, that if you don't have all that in place, when you begin to use a tactic like using AI, it's not going to have good output because you're not aligning it to your specific business. So you need to have your strategy super clear so that when you begin to give AI prompts, it understands your business, it understands your values, it understands your audience, it understands your goals, it understands your objectives, it understands everything, and it becomes better output. So you can see that AI is simply another tool, it's another tactic, a means to an end. It's not a strategy, but you need strategy plus AI to be able to produce better output. So some better practices would be to anchor your tactics to one core strategic objective. Best practice number two is to remember to set your strategy once, but then check your tactics often. See what's happening with the tactics that you're using. Is it growing your email list? Are you converting more? What's happening with the tactics? Review it, tweak it. There's always iterations of things that we do in order to improve it. Best practice number three, clarified desired outcomes before choosing any tool. So when you're looking at tools, and now we have so many to choose from, there's lots of tools coming out. Figure out what is the outcome that I want? What is the goal? Does this tool support it? Or is it something that's just really popular right now, or is it something that I'll need in the future? Just use tools that you need right now to help you reach those milestones toward your goal. And you can always use AI to compare tools before you invest in any tools. The fourth best practice is keep your plan simple, measurable, and human-centered. This is really important. I'm such an advocate of simplicity, especially as a solo business owner. We don't need to overcomplicate our lives. And so keep it simple. Keep the strategy simple, keep the tactics simple and improve over time, and then you can grow from there. And lastly, I want to remind you that AI supports your tactics, not necessarily your strategy. So if you have a tactic to create articles, it can support you in that. If you have a tactic to produce podcasts, it can support you in that. If your tactic is to produce videos, it can support you in that. AI is really a support tool for the tactics that you have in place that are aligned to your strategy. Hopefully that makes sense and you understand how we're using AI. The advantage to this is that AI will help you execute consistently without all the overwhelm. So you can be more consistent and you can even edit and improve your content. You can have AI analyze your content. All of this is very helpful to improve what you're already doing, not to add more. AI doesn't replace your why, it amplifies the how you're going to do it. It's going to support the tactics. So your business doesn't need a new direction, it needs alignment and action. So once you have the strategy, align it to the action, which is your tactics. One of the things that you can do to execute on the tactics is to have goals. And sometimes within those goals, you have to set new habits. And it's really difficult for solo business owners to do this because it sounds like another thing that they have to do. But I have a free tool, a custom GPT, that will help you do this. It'll help you map out your annual goals, your quarterly goals, your monthly goals, your weekly goals, even your daily goals. And I use the SMARTE framework. I am a full focus certified pro. If you know Michael Hyatt, it is part of what he had started with the SMART framework and is now called Full Focus. And in this Custom GBT, I use the SMARTER framework. If you've never heard of it, SMARTER stands for, it's an acronym and it stands for specific, measurable, actionable, risky, time-bound, exciting, and relevant. And it will help you once you have your strategy and you figure out what tactics you want to use, how you want to execute to reach that goal, this custom GPT can help you break it all down, right down to a day by day, the three things you need to do to achieve your goal. It makes it so simple. It helps you be able to not have decision fatigue. It helps you stay focused and it helps you get things done. So this is kind of an introduction to what AI can do. It's completely free. All you have to do is go to my website, marissa shadrick.com forward slash productivity, or you can even Google it, Marissa Shadrick and Productivity, and you'll see it. It is completely free. It is a private community where I show up once a month and I provide a masterclass on productivity to help you execute, to help you reach those goals. But you have to have a strategy very clear and then figure out what tactics you're going to use. And then with this tool, you're able to execute day by day. So that's what I have for you today. If you listen to this podcast and you enjoyed it, I would love it if you leave a five star rating and review. I would appreciate it so much. I'm trying to get the word out about the podcast, and I need your help to do that. So until next time, take care. Bye bye.