Episode 145: What's your strategy?
In this quick tip episode, Fiona discusses the difference between a strategy and a tactic. Listen now to differentiate the two and how you can prepare your vision, your goals, your strategy, and your business tactics.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Strategies
Tactics
Example
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
Hello, and welcome to Episode 145 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. My name is Fiona Killackey. I'm the host of this podcast. And I'm also a business coach. And I predominantly work with businesses on branding, marketing, mindset, and systems and processes.
So those are kind of four things that I really, really work with most people on. And sometimes it's more or less of one or the other. And I really work with creative small business owners that have a purpose behind what they're building, they are not there to just, I'm going to TEDx this, and I'm going to buy something really cheap and sell it at a massive profit. And I'm just going to, you know, not really care who I push or shove on the way. They're opposite. They really want to build businesses that align with their values and their beliefs. They're usually quite creative. And they can be like, you know, a technically an area that is not necessarily thought of as creative, like lawyers or accountants, but they work with creatives. And they work in a creative way. And they have a creative and a curious mindset. So if that is you, and you're listening to this and thinking, I'd really like some help with my mindset, my brand, my marketing, or my systems and processes, then definitely get in touch, you can find me on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach, or you can email us at hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com and you'll find a whole range of what we offer over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop.
So today is a quick tip episode. And it's something that is super important. I think a lot of people don't get the difference between two terms that are used all the time in business. And I just want to go through one of those terms, so that you can start thinking about all the actions that you're taking in your business. Are they this or are they not? And that might give you a hint about what we're talking about.
Before we get stuck in, I just want to always pay my respects to the traditional owners and custodians on the land on which I live and I record this podcast, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated.
So let's get on with today's quick tip episode. So I often work with people on their strategy. So it could be their overall business strategy. So looking at, you know, what's the business model? Who's involved? What's the resources? Look at your revenue streams, your money is a huge part of what I work with people on. And I might work with them on their marketing strategy, their brand strategy is a big one. And often I hear people use the term 'Strategy' in relation to what they're actually meaning, which is tactics. So I wanted to go through what a strategy actually is, where does that word even come from? And also just give you a framework that I use with people that may help you uncover your strategy.
So firstly, I guess, what is the word strategy? Because you just hear it to death everywhere.
So strategy really comes from, you know, I think it's Greek words, it's it's Stratos, which means army. And -ago, which means leaving or driving forth, or moving forward.
So if you take an army and you're moving forward towards something, or you're leading, then you're taking action on something to create an end goal. So I like to think of your strategy. Sort of, if you can imagine, like a triangle. And at the very top, you've got your vision. So what's the vision? Why even in this business? Why did you start it? What's the mission where you're trying to go? Mission and vision, they're quite different as well, I shouldn't interlink them, but what is the vision? What's the overarching purpose of this business. And then underneath that, once you understand your vision, you will have goals, and I am totally into goals and actually achieving them, not just setting them. But you know, I'm sure I have other podcasts on goals.
But so you've got your vision, then you've got your goals. And I like to get people to just think of three, just three goals don't make it, you know, 20 goals, because you won't achieve them, you'll feel like a failure. And with the goals, you always want to use a framework, which is I want to move from X to Y by when so that, and part of that framework comes from an amazing book called The Four Disciplines of Execution, which everyone should check out, we'll link to it in the show notes.
But you have to you want to think about your goals in from x. So where am i right now? What's the current state to y, what's the future state and is there a deadline around there which they should be, you know, by when which is a deadline "so that" and it's a "so that" is so important, because the "so that" is usually the incentive. So I want to move from making this much money now to making this much money so that I can take the weekend off, or I can hire another staff member or I could, you know, finally buy that house we want to buy or whatever it is that's the incentive you need the so that to make the goal actually happen because that's the incentive. Do you know so often we make goals, and there's nothing really driving it. So it's sort of like, oh, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And that's fine. That's totally fine and lots of things in life.
But the three business goals you want to have from x to y by when so that, so you've got vision at the top of this triangle, then you've got goals, and then you've got strategy. So how are we you know, why are we doing this? Which groups are we going to go into? How are we going to make this happen. And then under strategy, this is important. You have the tactics.
So the tactics are they're doing they are how we do this. So hope that Firstly, makes sense. It's hard to kind of I know put together a visual when you are on an audio platform, like podcasting. So you kind of have the vision and you got goals, and you got strategy, you got your tactics. So let's just put this into an example. So let's say you have a vision of creating, I'm just making this up. So you have a vision of creating skincare for non-binary teenagers, let's just say that's that's the niche, we want to make the go-to skincare for non-binary teenagers. So they feel super confident in their skin, and in who they are. So that's the vision, that's the vision of the business.
Then the goal. So you might have various goals, you'll have three, let's say you have three big goals, and you'll have sub-goals underneath those. But let's say one of your goals is around sales, because you're selling skincare, you want to sell it. So you want to make money. So you might say my goal, and you've just gotten started, really maybe it's you know, however long you're in the business. So you might say my goal is moving from making 300,000 in total revenue, this is not profit 300,000 total revenue for 2021. calendar year, I want to move to making 600,000 in calendar year 2022. So you're doubling. So that I can hire another staff member and take more time off. And remember, you always want to go from x to y by when so that. And so that goal, I'm just going to repeat it again, you're going to move from making 300,000 total revenue in calendar year 2021, to making 600,000 in calendar year 2022. So that you can hire another staff member and take time off. So that's the goal.
The strategy would be like, okay, part of our strategy is that we want to increase our average transaction value. So we want to double our overall revenue. We want to increase how much on average people are spending on our online store, and within store customers. So so you might have like a pop up store or markets or maybe not markets at that price, but maybe a pop up store. So you would say that's the strategy. And remember, you've got this army. So think about this, think about your strategy is where the army comes into it. And they're like, Okay, we've got this goal.
How are we doing things? Now, I have zero background. And I don't know anyone that's been in the army. I actually one person I used to work with a cafe when I was like 17. And he went off to the army. But I didn't keep in touch with him. So I don't know, anyone in the army land. So I'm just sort of what I'm saying army. I'm literally taking a guess that's what the word strategy means. But you go back to those goals, and you think, "Okay! My strategy is pulling that army into place." and going, why like, what are we doing? What's the overarching strategy to get this goal.
So then if the overarching strategy, and you may have a few, a few different strategic moves that you're making, one of them is we need to increase the average transaction value of our online store, then your tactics, this is the doing - tactics, we will incorporate low priced add ons at on product detail pages. So it could be you know, you're selling skincare, it could be face washes, it could be masks to sleeping, it could be like eye mask, it could be pillowcases, it could be all these other add ons. It could be that you are incorporating free shipping over x, which often increases the value that people spend on average. So you'll see that all the time. So if someone's average transaction value on a website is like $35, they might say it's free shipping over 50, what they're trying to do is to get you up, so there should be my of cost $10. So if you got to $45, sorry, $35 plus $10 would be 45. If they could just get you to spend that little bit extra, then you know, all sorts of things can go on but one of them would be that the average transaction value the spend is going to go up so your tactics, like I said incorporating low price add ons, free shipping, it could be really great visual merchandising if you have a pop up store so that you know people are coming in but also a great visual merchandising online and in store for bundles.
So it's another area where you will can create an increase in your average transaction value because you're putting things together so instead of me buying just the facewash I'm now buying the facewash and the moisturizer So it's, it might have a slight discount if I buy them together, or maybe it has a gift with purchase, which is another way to increase the perceived value of what people are spending, so they spend more. So you have bundles, you could have an introduced like a limited edition range. So that's the highest price point. So you might do a skincare, you might do an artwork, like you might collaborate with a cool artist who's maybe as a non-binary artist. And so you're like, cool, I want to put the non-binary artists artwork on here with leveraging their audience and their community in everything else. And so that may increase, You could promote this to your, you know, top tier buyers. So you might have like the top 100 people that regularly buy from you, you could incorporate a VIP shopping event, you know, not in Melbourne, if you're like me and the lockdown. But at some point, we will have shopping events, you could have like, you could automate, you know, a SKU specific email sequence. So you could say, so SKU is, you know, some people may not know that word, it's a term that is usually used for a unit of products. So, you might have like a shop that has 20 SKUs, which is 20 different product lines. Or, Anyway, I digress.
But you could automate so that if someone buys the face washer, they automatically go into an email sequence to nurture them to come back and buy more. So that can overtime, increase your average transaction value. So those are tactics. And so often I see people say, here's my strategy, and it's a bunch of tactics, it is not actually the strategy, the strategy in this case is, we need to increase that average transaction value. That's what we need to do to hit this goal.
So again, you don't just necessarily have one strategy, you'll have a couple of different strategies to hit those goals. And then under each strategy, you will have the tactics to achieve that. So remember, just think of it like the army is other people out there, then they go, they've got to have like a general, they've gotta have somebody telling them, this is what you do. So I hope that makes sense. If you just kind of go back to that triangle that I talked about at the top, you have got vision, then you've got your goals, then you've got your strategy, then you've got your tactics. So I guess that's it for this quick tip episode. But I just would really love you to think about Do I have a strategy? Or am I do I have my goals? And if I don't have either of those, what can I do to work on them? And also look at your plans, especially as we're heading into 2022 and think about, is there a strategy here are we just like throwing stuff at the wind?
Now, this is definitely something that I talk about a lot with clients, I talk about it in group coaching, I talk about it in my courses, especially around Marketing for Your Small Business. So if you are interested in that stuff, please get in touch with us. Again, our email is just hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com you can find a whole bunch of things that can help you with your business, including 1:1 coaching over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop. Hope you found that really useful. And if you have, please share it with your friends, please hit subscribe. And I'd love to see what you made of this on social media. So don't forget to tag at @mydailybusinesscoach. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time. As always, I should mention that before the show notes are available at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/145. Alright, that's it for me. See you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
