Recently, I had conversations with three coaches who were experiencing different challenges that stemmed from the same core issue – a core issue that can keep many coaches stuck.
It’s something I struggled with for many years, which sent me off on a wild goose chase of more courses and training, different business focuses, and what felt like an exhausting treadmill of action taking, but never really being able to build the momentum I needed to grow my business to the level I wanted.
Here are the three challenges, let’s see if you’re able to relate to either of these:
- You’ve worked with a coach who has helped you put together a marketing tactic (i.e. a webinar funnel), however it’s not really generating the results you wanted, you’re not currently leveraging the tactic, and you’re unsure you’re targeting the ideal client who you want to continue working with.
- The marketing tactic you’re doing to fill your pipeline has left you burned out (i.e. live launching) and you’re questioning whether you still want to work with the ideal client your live launch was targeting.
- The marketing tactic you’re doing is working, however, because it relies heavily on you, it’s going to be hard to scale, as there is only one of you.
Can you relate to either of these frustrating scenarios?
The underlying core issue of each of these three challenges has to do with Strategy and Tactic. Specifically, the lack of an overall strategy, which has led to the wrong tactic being implemented, which has led to the challenges they were facing.
While the topic of strategy and tactic may seem boring – as the title of this article states – Strategy and Tactic matter. Because:
Without a clearly-defined strategy and correctly-planned tactic, you could continue to follow each of the latest marketing trends, try out every new bright shiny technology claimed to be ‘THE answer’ that’s just hit the market, and still continue to struggle to build the momentum you need to build the momentum you need to be seen as an Influential Trusted Authority while build a successful business, without burning out in the process.
When it comes to strategy and tactic, here is a summary of the most common issues you want to avoid:
A solid strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. Your strategy should define your long-term goal and how you’re planning to achieve them, and it should be actionable.
According to ClearPoint Strategy:
“Your strategy is the foundation for all activities within the organization, and how it’s crafted will guide decision-making as your teams work to achieve those goals.”
Have you got a clearly-defined strategy for your coaching business? I didn’t for years, even after hiring several business coaches over the years – none of them helped me clarity a strategy, nor did they even discuss how important and overall strategy was to help me build my coaching business.
It wasn’t until my worst business failure ever several years ago (which is now the best thing that happened to me), I joined a business mastermind and we spent time clarifying our Vision and Mission.
My Vision and Mission has remained the same to this very day, which is,
‘To make a difference in the lives of one billion people,’ with my mission, ‘Changing the world – ONE message, ONE podcast at a time.’
I’m also clear of my own core values and that of the business and my Vision and Mission continue to be what I work towards each and every year with the different marketing tactics we launch.
In fact, it’s because of clarifying my Vision and Mission, which are very much part of my overall strategy, that has played a significant part in me being able to say that my worst business failure ever, has been the best thing that could have happened to me, because it led me down the path to where I find myself today.
It gave me the impetus I needed to put into place what was lacking all of those years prior in my business. A strategy.
So, now every decision I make, every plan I map out and consider, keeps in mind my overall strategy – my Vision and Mission, along with my Vision Goal, which is, ‘To be the leading Brand, Communications & Podcasting Strategist who supports coaches/consultants (who feel like the world’s best kept secret) go from invisible to influential trusted authority – so they become THE choice vs the A choice with their dream client with a unique, uncopyable and distinguishable brand, message and podcast.’
It’s why when helping our clients launch their podcast, we follow the formula, ‘S + T + U = I (to the power of three).’
Strategy + Tactic + YOU! = Influence, Impact AND Income.
The right podcast strategy, along with the right tactic + YOU (their unique, uncopyable and distinguishable brand and message) will enable our clients to build influence and impact, so they’re seen as influential trusted authorities, so they become THE choice vs just A choice when their ideal client is ready to move forward. And. It’s because of the reputation they’re building, which leads to them being able to enrol customers with ease, therefore successfully building their business and income.
ACTION STEP:
Do you have a clear Strategy in place? Have you defined your Vision and Mission? Do you have a Vision Goal, which supports your Vision and Mission that you are working toward every year? Is every decision you make, every marketing tactic you implement – is it leading you toward your Vision and Mission?
A Tactic is an action that is carefully planned to achieve a specific end, which is working toward your Vision and Mission and Vision Goal.
ClearPoint Strategy sums this up well:
“A good tactic has a clear purpose that aids your strategy. It has a finite timeline during which specific activities will be completed and their impacts measured.”
So, you may have an idea of your Vision and Mission, you may also have a clearly defined Vision Goal and you know what you are working towards. However, what you don’t have is a carefully planned course of action – the step-by-step plan (i.e. tactic) to help get you there.
For instance, just posting on social media, or joining Facebook Groups and leaving comments in those groups is not a carefully planned tactic. What is the purpose of that post – does it have intention? Is it to build brand awareness? Is it to respond to a question where you’re showcasing your expertise through the valuable insights you share, which then leads people into your opt-in, where they can get more valuable insights should they wish to. And, when they access your opt-in, they’re now part of your customer relationship-building funnel, giving you the opportunity to nurture them along the customer journey.
When it comes to the tactic we use in our business, and what we help our clients achieve with their podcast strategy, is that they are able to begin nurturing listeners into leads from their very first episode.
We make sure their podcast aligns with their overall business vision and mission and vision goal, there’s a clear and compelling call to action that gets people off the podcast and onto our clients list, so they become a warm lead. Then we make sure there’s a nurturing strategy in place to continue nurturing that prospective customer along the customer journey into a strategy/discovery call.
We can monitor and track the success of this tactic, all the way through each touch point, which enables us to tweak if we need to, in order to continue filling our client’s pipeline.
ACTION STEP:
Plan out your tactic, remembering that it needs to have a clear purpose that supports your strategy. Make sure it can be measured so that you can determine how successful that tactic was in generating the outcomes you wanted. How many leads did it/does it continue to generate, so that you can determine whether any part of your tactic needs to be tweaked in order to generate better results the next time you launch it.
This is where you need to consider the stage you’re at in your business (i.e. just starting out and building your list of prospective customers, or you have an engaged list of prospective customers) along with your business model and how you want to deliver your services/programs, along with your team and their capabilities to support you.
A podcast is a great tactic that can work extremely well in building your visibility, building ‘know, like and trust,’ and generating leads for your business. However, if your existing message isn’t working and you hope a podcast is going to help you get your message out to more people – it won’t. It’s only going to amplify an existing message that isn’t working to more people.
Similarly, in the example I mentioned previously about the coach who had being doing live launches as part of her tactic – she was exhausted and needed to find a better, more streamlined way to fill her pipeline and continue to nurture prospective clients along the customer journey.
Because, when she wasn’t live launching, her pipeline wasn’t being filled with new people, nor was she continuing to nurture existing leads along the customer journey through an automated customer relationship-building funnel.
Live launching can be a fantastic tactic, however, if it’s the only tactic, and if you implement that tactic too soon (before you’ve had an opportunity to build an existing audience) it may not generate the results you want and can lead to exhaustion. Plus, you’re only building awareness and generating leads and clients when you’re in the process of live launch if you’re relying on live launches as your only tactic.
Similarly, if your tactic is speaking and you’re only filling your pipeline through speaking events – what happens if you decide you don’t want to do so much travel anymore? How will you continue to generate leads? Or if, worst-case scenario if all travel and conferences/events stopped? What happens then?
We need to be mindful that things can change in an instant, and just relying on speaking, or, on one tactic alone, especially a tactic that is dependent on a third party or industry, could be impact should something occur where that third party is no longer available or something happens to the industry.
If we look at the webinar tactic, if you’re using that with a cold audience, and someone is looking for a quick solution to their challenges, you may not yet have built a level of ‘reputation equity’ that someone would be willing to invest an hour of their time watching a training. A better tactic could be implemented in your marketing prior to a webinar to continue building ‘know, like and trust.’
These are just some of the things you’ll want to consider.
ACTION STEP:
Evaluate the current tactics you’re using in your business – are they working towards helping you achieve your strategy? Should you add an additional tactic to what you are currently doing in order to diversify in case one of the tactics doesn’t have the same momentum as it once did, so you still have another tactic in place to fill your pipeline?
Integration means the process of combining two or more things into one. Cohesion means the action or fact of forming a united whole.
How do you tell if you have a lack of integration and/or cohesion with your overall strategy and the marketing tactics you’re doing?
Hint: Have you been tried lots of different marketing tactics, but they’re not focused on one overall strategy, nor do they work together focusing on ONE clear main message, leading prospective customers into ONE automated and optimized customer relationship-building funnel?
If the marketing you’re doing isn’t generating the results you’d hoped for – it’s probably because of the lack of integration and/or lack of cohesion of both your strategy and tactic(s).
ACTION STEP:
Make sure you have a clearly defined strategy. Then ensure that every marketing tactic you implement is integrated into what you are already doing, continues to focus on the ONE clear main message you want to become known as an influential trusted authority in, and leads prospective customers into your ONE automated and optimized customer relationship-building funnel. When you do, you’ll begin to build the momentum you need, so you finally have a steady flow of leads in your pipeline, which you can continue to nurture along the customer journey.
NEXT STEPS:
Do you have the right strategy and tactic(s) in place? Take our Customer Relationship-Building Quiz now to find out: www.AnnemarieCross.com/Quiz