Change Your Strategy Slowly, Change Your Tactics Swiftly

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Strategy vs. Tactic #happylittlepractice

In the past three years, we have collectively, as a country, been on the receiving end of SO MUCH change. 

I made a list while I was journaling this weekend, just to see it all on paper. 

There were over a dozen changes!

Gulp. 

Just ONE of them would have been enough. Thank you very much!

You most certainly are aware of what I'm talking about: the shifts in politics, governing, the cultural, environmental, global, racial, economic upheaval, and more. 

And now, another change has arrived, this time impacting women's healthcare.

 

So, today I want to offer you something that is very practical for navigating change as a small business owner, professional coach, consultant or practitioner. 

You may be on your own to figure out your little business, so allow me to pitch in. 

 

Before I get into the very practical tip... 

First, please know you are invited to come to my next free, community Q&A gathering .

Bring your Qs, share what's on your mind, and we'll work on it together. Sign up here. Put it on your calendar. Show up. It's free. 

 

Second, if you want to stop spinning your wheels and make sense of all the thoughts you have in your head about your business and marketing, then please consider joining the Happy Little Practice Club. 

The club details are here.


Okay, back to my quick, but powerful tip for your solo-business. 

Here it is: Change your strategy slowly, but change your tactics swiftly. 

I learned this from one of my dearest business mentors, Andrea J. Lee. 

Here's what that means. 

You need a core strategy for reaching your ideal clients and inviting them to work with you.

In the Happy Little Practice Method, this needs to be something you willingly do again and again and again.

And there needs to be just ONE main strategy, because for most, that's enough when it's done right and it's hard enough to get one strategy to work. 

Your marketing strategy can be writing, networking, speaking, advertising or something else that suits you best and allows you to invite people to book a first appointment with you. 

In Happy Little Practice, most of my clients enjoy teaching and are educators at heart, so we tend to use signature talks as our primary strategy, so let's use that as an example. 

Instead of trying to put together lots of different talks, workshops and topics, we create one signature presentation that you perfect as you go, and deliver in a variety of ways. 


A signature talk, given regularly to your ideal clients is a strategy. 

How you deliver your signature talk lives in the realm of tactics. 

One strategy, a few creative tactics. 

If giving a signature talk is your main strategy, here are a variety of ways you can get creative with your speaking tactics:

  • speak at traditional, in-person events

  • do podcast interviews on other people's podcasts

  • host open Q&As

  • be a panelist

  • lead webinars

  • start a podcast that pulls apart all the content of your signature talk into 52 short, weekly episodes

  • go local or exclusively online, or a combo

  • invite people to your backyard (or to a Zoom Meet Up) and host a "fireside chat"

  • go corporate and sell your talk

  • find cool, local organizations to offer your talk to

  • social media lives/shorts to your people or other people's audiences

  • paid advertising to send people to watch a pre-recorded class or to attend a live version

  • travel to people's living rooms, Eckart Tolle style, and offer a Ladie's Night In

Your tactics are only limited by your creativity, intuition and inner wisdom.

Now, when big changes happen in the country, I have noticed clients tend to question their strategy, or think they must change it. 

Or they STOP their strategy all together to wait and see. 

Don't do that. 

Do this instead: Change the strategy very slowly, but get creative and nimble with your tactics. 

 

Uncertainty is part of life, business and all that there is.

It's normal to be thrown off by it. 

But only because we are human and we think it's bad, when really, it's part of life. 

 

You can do this.

Use all your inner resources, like your intellect and wild hunches, to keep your strategy going by tweaking your tactics in innovative ways. 

And don't do what most people do, which is start sampling six different strategies and end up doing none of them well. (I've already tried it, and it's not very effective. Ha!)

Don't have a strategy? I can help. 

A few options, for whenever you’re ready:

1) Join the Happy Little Practice Club now.

2) Come to my next free Q&A class.

3) Book a time to see if private coaching with me is a fit for both of us. 

4) Invite me to speak to your group or meet your podcast listeners.

 

I'm in this with you, my friend!

BONUS TIP: I go deeper on the strategy vs tactic concept in this free class. Have a listen while on-the-go!