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For so many modern, driven women, life is about being more than one thing. We’re multidimensional—and so are our conversations. We carry multiple identities; we can be both mother and artist; both attorney and entrepreneur. Both clinician and CEO. Both humble and proud. Life for women like us is about both. About…all of the above. It’s about the “and”...
[00:00:00] welcome to the And She Spoke podcast. Hey Sandy. How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you? I'm great. What are we talking about today? I think this episode we're gonna be talking about the difference between strategies and tactics, and we have witnessed a confusion in our clients, and I think you actually pointed this out and like understanding this differences when you were trying to market and grow your business is everything.
[00:00:27] And I think the. Most of our clients, most of the people we witness, and this has come up because of all of the audience audits, right? So we've got all of these submissions and all the pain and all the frustration and all of them are just doing tactics. They don't have an overarching strategy.
[00:00:43] So we really just wanted to pull these two concepts apart so you can see in your own business, oh, this is what I'm doing, or maybe not. It's oh no, I have a really good, solid strategy in place. Yeah, I think this is super important and it took a long time for us [00:01:00] to realize this. Yeah. Like years in business.
[00:01:02] So it's, if you don't know the difference between strategy and tactics, it's not your fault. This is something that is not super intuitive and it's not something that we'd like. Talk about constantly and there's not a lot of content on this, so don't worry about it. Like you're gonna figure it out today.
[00:01:16] And once you know it, you'll never unknow it. Once you know it. Yeah. And also it's really not very sexy to be like, let's talk about strategies versus tactics. Yeah, maybe we need to rename that, but it's just not like I'm not calling this podcast that cuz no one will listen to it. Anyway.
[00:01:33] Okay, so what I wanna do, Jenny, is I just wanna paint the picture of what it's like to run a business. When you are jumping from tactic to tactic, what does that feel like? I. Yeah, I'll just give my impression and then you can maybe give yours. I think it feels chaotic, like schizophrenic is probably the best word I can think of to describe it because you're like constantly jumping from one thing to a next, like the next, not [00:02:00] finishing anything.
[00:02:01] Not being sure and like what you should be doing. And so like jumping from expert to expert or teacher to teacher. And like blog post. A blog post, just trying to like grasp at what your next step should be. And it's like really disempowering and not helpful and it causes many people to waste a lot of time and money.
[00:02:23] Yeah. Over. Overall for all the audience audit submissions that we got, there's this constant amongst everyone that is I am working so hard, I'm doing so many things. I am constantly doing, and they list off all these things, but I haven't attracted any new students or clients. I haven't seen any growth in my list.
[00:02:47] I am exhausted and I don't know how much longer I. Can do that. And I think that is why this work or really understanding this, cuz we don't want any, especially women, we don't want women to quit their businesses because they're just doing [00:03:00] tactics. We wanna teach this. So you can think higher level and more strategically so that you can stay in the game and, be successful with your business. But yeah. So I, let me give you a couple of examples. So what we see is that people will. I have to, like they, they know that they have to get the word out about what they're doing. They know that they have to market and promote and talk with their business and attract new clients.
[00:03:23] And so they will go onto social media and maybe buy like a caption bank, to put, the writing for their Instagram captions. Let me just buy a bank of ideas, of templates of what I can do. Lemme try that. Or, let me try this like funnel strategy to create a self-liquidating offer funnel on the back of an ads campaign, right?
[00:03:46] Or ads into a Facebook group. And once you have this sort of pool of people in the Facebook group, you can sell them into your program or coaching program, or whatever it may be. Yeah. Yep. Or yeah, these are very common. Or like [00:04:00] chasing trending audio. A lot of it has to do, a lot of the tactics are social media.
[00:04:04] And so people will like, I'm just gonna go all in and reels and I'm just gonna do reels cuz the algorithm is favoring video right now. So lemme go do that, right? And it says, it is this chaotic. You try something, it doesn't work, or it's too hard or it's taking too long. So you're like, that's not working, that's wrong.
[00:04:20] I'm gonna go try this. And you choose another thing like, All I had to do, I wrote an email about this. All I had to do to get the ideas for the email is scroll through Instagram and there's all these people, don't launch a course, do this. And there's all this advice. And so it's just like whatever's, like who's ever talking in your ear is giving you an idea and you're just jump glam onto that and like this is gonna work and then it doesn't.
[00:04:43] So then you jump to the next tactic. You know what this really reminds me of, Sandy, is like diet culture. Isn't it the same thing? It's like the same part of your human brain that wants this like quick fix. It's why same brain? Yeah. Yeah. It's like why these kinds of books, like there's always like a new book that everyone's [00:05:00] reading, about like how to get healthy and like the true answer.
[00:05:02] Like the strategy is Eat nutritious food and move your body. Yeah. Yeah. Like ultimately that's like at the base of everything. But it's like there's all these little tactical things that's oh, you need to fast for 16 hours. No, you need to fast for 17 hours. Or No, you need to go into a cold plunge.
[00:05:18] Or No. You know what I mean? It's all this like constantly shifting. Yeah. Tactical information that never, there's like, why wasn't, if it's really that great why weren't people talking about it like 10 years ago, 20 years ago? And I think. Yeah. So that's a great analogy. And like tactics, I think.
[00:05:35] And that this, your example illustrated this tactics are trending. Yeah. Like tactics are like hot right now for a minute and then they stop working. Yeah. And then something, somebody's talking about something else and then everyone jumps on there. And tactics can work, right? Like coal plunging Yeah.
[00:05:49] Might work for you. In, in marketing. Yeah, maybe audio, like you trying to chase down the trending audio might work for you for a little bit until that's no longer a [00:06:00] thing. Or like using a hashtag strategy might work for a little bit until it doesn't. So you always have to be aware of what is working cuz the tactics alone, I think, this is what we're trying to say, the tactics alone are not gonna get you to your goal.
[00:06:14] Yeah, and I think that actually, like I would even backtrack a little and say they might work for a little while. Like to what end? Because if you get a bunch of people like paying attention to you because you're using trending audio and reels, does that actually move the needle in your business or does it just get people paying attention to your like trendy reels, which like have no real connection to your business?
[00:06:34] It feels good. Feels good. I'm glad that is not something that feels good to me because. It feels like a giant waste of time. But yeah, I mean I think that like part of. Part of the reason why we don't wanna call this episode strategy versus tactics is because it's like not, doesn't sound very fun or exciting and just like being healthy.
[00:06:53] Like we all know the fundamentals of health, right? Like it's, when you're like 10 years old how to be healthy. I. Get good [00:07:00] sleep, eat nutritious food, move your B, like those things are like, there's nothing exciting, there's nothing dramatic. There's nothing that's surprising about any of that.
[00:07:10] Like it's just really boring. And I think that business. When you break it down, like to me it is really Bo like at this point it's pretty boring. And so I think we look, we don't, we're not drawn to boring things, but I will just say if you're a business owner listening to this, if you're an entrepreneur, like it's pretty nice to be in the boring space where like things are working.
[00:07:29] Yeah. When you know what you're doing. Yeah. I think the mental toll of trying to run a business from tactic to tactic is what is burns women out. It's what, yeah. Stops you. It's I can't do this anymore. You're just chasing and getting no results. And so let's go now to goals and strategies and then show how tactics will fit into that.
[00:07:50] So what's the first thing that we want to if we're gonna run a business, what's the first thing we wanna decide? Who we're serving. [00:08:00] Second thing, goal, the goal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like what is the fundamental goal? So can I just give the definition of strategy here, Sandy? Maybe that's what you're trying to prod me to do.
[00:08:12] So strategy is the overall plan of action to achieve a goal. So it's like very much rooted in long-term thinking and taking into account like the big picture of what you're there to do. So like in our case, our for the business and She Coaching which is our coaching company, like. What is our goal, Sandy? Our goal is to help 50,000 women make a hundred thousand dollars.
[00:08:39] Yep. Yes. So every single thing that we do in our business should be a reflection of how to manifest that goal. So that's when these questions come up, these like tactical questions, should we focus on an hour a day, capturing, trending audio? Does that fit in that goal? Yeah. And if no we've determined that it doesn't, but I [00:09:00] think for most people they need to sit down and journal about that.
[00:09:02] Like what, how would this tactic lead to this goal? And what, how much time would it take and what are the opportunity costs? What am I not doing because I'm making a bunch of reels with trending audio. Yeah. Yeah. So it, I think about it in like layers. And so we have to have our goal.
[00:09:20] So that might be like a big audacious one, like what I just said. Or it might be like, I need to grow my business, I need to make a revenue goal. Or it might be I need to grow my list by a thousand people or whatever. And so that's what you wanna do. And then the strategy is this higher overarching, so below the goal is the strategy, the higher overarching.
[00:09:41] Plan of attack, right? And then below that, the strategy that you choose is going to dictate what tactics you are going to implement in which ones you can ignore, like trending audio. And I think. That ability to say no is, is really will help you with the [00:10:00] overwhelm that so many of you are expressing with your business that you just can't, you're doing all these things and you can't do anymore and you're not seeing any growth.
[00:10:05] It's let's like not do some things right and let's like really get clear on what we're trying to do. Have this overarching plan, the strategy. It's like an itinerary to me. And then okay, you know what? Here's what I wanna do. Here's, I'm gonna try this, and this tactics open, knowing that they may work for a couple months and then they might stop working cuz they're trending and then I'm gonna have to switch tactics, but I'm gonna decide the tactics based on the strategy.
[00:10:30] Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just share our definition of tactics here so that everyone's on the same page. And tactics are the specific actions that you need to take to implement your strategy. So they're short-term, they're flexible, they can be changed and modified and switched out as needed. Yeah. And I think that's a big the time is you don't train change strategies every week, but you maybe would have to do, Strat different tactics every week.
[00:10:54] So the strategy is in place. And we want you to do that for I would say at [00:11:00] least a year. Hey, Jenny, like you've got one strategy. Maybe longer. I would say longer, forever. I would, I, and I would have longer commitments to the tactics too, because I would say at least quarterly commitment to a tactic.
[00:11:10] Because a week or a month is not enough time to really determine if it's got legs for you. And so like to me, the strategy is I don't like, we're not gonna change our strategy, right? Like we're not gonna change, like our strategy in our business is to grow in this business, is to grow an audience through our podcast, right?
[00:11:28] To develop our thought leadership and share our vision for what's possible here on the podcast. And then how we get the podcast out to the world. Those are tactical decisions and those are always changing, right? So let's Jenny, do you wanna explain our visible strategy, what we teach? Because I think, and like rooting this in a really specific example will be super helpful.
[00:11:51] Yeah. So the strategy that we teach, all of the entrepreneurs that we work with, In our coaching programs we teach it through our visible course. We teach it in the [00:12:00] luminaries program, is essentially to grow your business by becoming a thought leader who builds a body of work publicly on the internet.
[00:12:09] So that's the strategy. There's lots of ways you could grow a business. Our friend Claire Ptro, she doesn't do this as much. She does have a podcast, but like she. Definitely like prioritizes getting the word out for the most part through ads and there's other strategies for growing a business.
[00:12:27] I, I would argue that in the creator economy, like this is the best strategy to use to build an online business, like in the economy and in the world that those of us in online business are working in. What I have just described is, What we teach in our programs is like the fundamental strategy that you need to grow on the internet does not mean that other strategies cannot work.
[00:12:52] They can, but this is the gold standard of what works online for internet and it's, it's taught in our specific way [00:13:00] with like our analogies and, our systems, but like the fundamental idea that. You grow a business by creating a body of work on the internet is I think at the root of the creator economy.
[00:13:13] And so some of the tactics to grow that audience from your body of work would be like a podcast as you mentioned, or like the body of work has to. Live somewhere has to be housed somewhere. So we would teach that. It's gotta be a podcast or a YouTube channel or a blog. Something that makes you discoverable somewhere where you can put your thoughts out there, your ideas, your beliefs, and people can find you.
[00:13:41] And that's another piece that people miss all the time. Yes. And it is freely. Available. Not gated. So that's another part of what we teach is that it's like if it's a podcast or a YouTube channel or a blog, like it's un gated, it's not like it's behind a newsletter opt-in form.
[00:13:58] It's not like [00:14:00] it's in a paid community. This is publicly available work that you're producing consistently every single week that anyone who has an internet connection has access to. A lot of the marketing examples in these audits that we're receiving, people will market to they might write a beautiful piece of thought leadership, but they'll send it to their email list and like you've already.
[00:14:25] Got the people on your email list. So the public part of this is how you're gonna find new people. It's how you're going to grow is by sharing it and making it available to anyone who's searching for those words. So that's another mistake is like the ta, their tactic is like just send to their email list and then commiserate about how they have no growth.
[00:14:45] But you have to be out there doing this work in public. Yeah, and we also talk about amplifiers and so those three options that we laid out, the YouTube channel the podcast idea or the blogging idea, those we call like your visibility [00:15:00] vehicle. We also teach in our programs. Then ideally you also have an one amplifier that you focus on, and that is often a social media tool, like a social media platform like Instagram or Twitter, or.
[00:15:13] Pinterest or what, whatever, wherever you have or want to build an audience. And so then like you're going out and you're like amplifying that body of work constantly on that social channel. So like this is, this strategy that we teach is like a very simple framework. For consistently building an audience and nurturing that audience.
[00:15:36] Like it, it is it prevents you from having to think about what else should I be doing right now? Should I be like, oh be real just came out there's a new social platform. Do I need to get on there? Yeah. Do I need to be on Snapchat? Like there, all of those questions consume a tremendous amount of mental energy and time.
[00:15:55] And I'm just thinking about like in the early pandemic days when like Clubhouse came out and everyone's [00:16:00] spending five hours a day in Clubhouse, was that maybe because they had nothing to do, but was that really worth your time? Like I think you wanna have a strategy that you can take all these tactical questions to and evaluate those tactics in light of what your bigger strategy is.
[00:16:15] Yeah, I think it's a good point because we just did a. One-on-one. It wasn't with you. When I say we, it was Autumn one of our team members and myself did a one-on, I guess a two-on-one with one of our clients. And it was so fascinating to hear cuz she's implemented, she understands the strategy, she is doing the work.
[00:16:31] She's got a podcast, she's doing it out, she's putting it out weekly. She's promoting it on social and. She was had, some personal life things blow up when she's just had a really rough time and hasn't had as much time as she'd like to run her business or work on her business. And her language was all around I'm behind.
[00:16:50] I'm not doing enough. I might, my list isn't growing, this isn't happening. And then when we zoomed out a bit, she's actually implementing the strategy beautifully, but her [00:17:00] brain is just feeling like you're not doing enough because you're not working 12 hours a day. But what was so beautiful to see is that she was able to give her time and attention to what needed who the people that needed her in her life and she was still able to do this.
[00:17:15] And then we looked at the numbers. She was growing, her audience was growing, her listenership, her subscribers to her podcast we're growing. And it's just like we have to back away from this belief that we need to fill every moment by marketing. Like maybe if we have a good strategy, We can fit it easily into a day or the f the full week with no problem.
[00:17:35] And that feels really good and that's really exciting cuz there's a lot of other things I'd like to do. Yeah. Like pickleball and beekeeping, like pickleball and beekeeping. Yes. Oh man. Can believe I just publicly admitted that. All right. I don't think either of those things are something you should be ashamed of.
[00:17:52] Yeah. I think that. People over complicate business because there is, first of all, like you're heavily [00:18:00] marketed too as a business owner. If you spend any time on the interwebs, like people are telling you like, you need this Facebook strategy now. Like this is your key to growing a six figure business.
[00:18:09] Or like we're just constantly being like marketed these tactical solutions and it again, it doesn't mean that implementing the tactics can't help but. The strategy, the underlying strategy has to be in place for you to really benefit. Sustainably long term from those tactics. And then yeah, get your strategy in place, get your cards in order your house in order, whatever the saying is.
[00:18:31] And then if you've got some extra bandwidth that you wanna spend some more time in your business, by all means, like I'm a queen of tactics. Like I love buying all the online courses. I have worked with all the coaches, like I love learning. And I can't tell our listeners how many times you and I have Gone through a tactical oriented online course where oh, we had something, or lots of money, lots for lots of money.
[00:18:52] But then like the, and then the tactic stopped working and one of someone that doesn't know me, but I consider a mentor, like someone, [00:19:00] like an internet figure said recently he just said basically once someone is selling the tactics, I was such a good podcast. He basically said, once someone is selling the tactics, Like they probably are already on their way out.
[00:19:15] If those tactics were working so well, they wouldn't be making an online course about the tactics. They'd be implementing the tactics and just making money from having implemented the tactics in their own business. So when people start selling you like caption banks and whatever else, like kind of tactical, quick win ideas, like it's probably already diminishing like the people.
[00:19:36] It's like, In a way, like a pyramid scheme, it's not the same, but it's like the first people to implement any tactic, always have oversized like outcomes. So you have outsized outcomes because like it's new. And when you take on a new way of selling or marketing, it's novel, you're gonna probably get a little boost from that.
[00:19:57] But if it's like a tactic that's been out for [00:20:00] six months or two years, like it's probably not. Yeah, there's probably like 10 new things that are already on their way up that are gonna work better. Yeah. So I think that, but, and then the chasing those trends, is like chasing your tail.
[00:20:13] It's so exhausting. That's why for most of you, just implementing the basic strategy and being consistent is far more important than adopting any of these tactics. Like why let's let we say this all the time in our programs. Let it be simple, like it can actually. Be simple. Yeah.
[00:20:32] Yes. Like I would say this business, like our online business here, our coaching company, Andy, is so much more similar to all of our clients' businesses than our other company. The software company, which is orders of magnitude more complicated but like when we work in this business, like it is literally the simplest thing like, I feel like we're holding like the secret of the universe and the secret of the economy in this work because it's so straightforward.
[00:20:59] It's [00:21:00] relatively like predictable. Like it's pretty easy. It's not full-time, like it's it's like kind of the dream. So just let it be the dream. Yeah, I agree. I think having separated the companies, it's just remarkable, like is this, can I go home at three o'clock?
[00:21:17] Like we've, what? What am I? Yeah, alright. It's just it. Yeah. So I want that for everyone and like the belief and the knowledge that it can be really straightforward and you don't need to work all the time. I think it's just, it's super exciting. I. Okay. Yeah. So you wanna wrap this up a little?
[00:21:34] Summarize? Yes. Yeah. Just basically you should figure out your strategy based on your goal, commit to your strategy for multiple years, I would say. But yeah, at least a year, but I think probably forever for the life of your business. And then your tactics can change. And I would just say The tactics matter a lot less when you have the holistic strategy and you're implementing it, right?
[00:21:55] So right when you're creating that important, regular, consistent content. [00:22:00] For your people and you're backing that up with an opt-in to get people onto your email list. Like we didn't talk about that. But it's not just give stuff away for free forever. Like it's also like incorporating an in there so that you're getting some of those people who follow you in your public spaces onto your email list.
[00:22:17] That's the damn plan. That's all you need to do. And then all the like little details really don't matter very much. Yeah, I was just gonna say when the way you described that there's multiple tactics that will support the strategy. It's not like you have to find the right tactic, right?
[00:22:32] There's probably many Oh yes. Many different ones will do the job. Yeah. This is I watched one of those matchmaking shows on Netflix. I don't know if you watched those ever. And I think it was the Jewish one where they said this. Cause I watched the Indian one and the Jewish one and one of the questions that people that, like the matchmaker got asked was, do you think there's one right person? For you or for everyone? Is there like one soulmate for everyone and like she said, no, there's lots of soulmates. [00:23:00] Think of your tactics as your, like lots of soulmates. There's no like single tactic that is like the one that's meant for you in your business.
[00:23:08] Yeah, there's some that are gonna be better for you based on your personality and your skills and the how much time you have and yeah, that's right. How comfortable you are with writing, how comfortable you are on video, and how comfortable you are making graphics. All of that. Sure.
[00:23:20] Evaluate it. But there's we could pick like you and I don't need to be podcasters like you and I don't need to be on Instagram. Everything we do, those are just, those are like, The particular paths that we chose to implement our strategy. But yeah, we could have, we could be like YouTubers, we could be bloggers, we could be on Pinterest.
[00:23:40] Like it doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. At all. Okay. Amazing. Okay. All right. What's the Joy Sandy? The Joy is a book that I just bought and I'm just quickly Typing in to get the author. It's called Ultra Processed People. Why We Can't Stop Eating [00:24:00] Food That Isn't Food. It is by a British physician. His name is Chris Vank.
[00:24:07] And I'm just like two, not even one and a half chapters in, and I'm just like, holy crap. And I have done a lot of reading in this area in my past lives and. I just really appreciate his science angle to this. And he's doing a whole like personal experiment where he's eating for a month only stuff that is ultra processed and they're like, oh gosh.
[00:24:32] Measuring all the things. It's super fascinating. Oh, and yeah. Anyway, I would highly recommend it for anyone who has any kind of Interest in nutrition or weight, or food and it's just, yeah, it's so good. It's so good. Or wants to stay alive. Or wants to stay alive and not be made from seed oils.
[00:24:52] Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I think that's like pretty damn universal. Like I feel like. I, I have a different [00:25:00] dietary style than you, Sandy. Like I'm vegetarian basically for life. And you are the, the opposite. But this is that one area where everyone agrees. Yeah. Is like no processed food.
[00:25:08] Just get rid of it. But not even a yogurt or a there's like the gu got he's talks about all these added ingredients and he goes into like the food science of it, like how it was developed and why. Yeah. Even like ice cream, like you can't even get ice cream that doesn't have something ultra processed.
[00:25:23] Like it was really hard not to eat alter processed. So he's taking us along this journey of a month of ultra process and then a month of not no alt and how hard it is. But what happens, like he's getting MRIs, he's doing all this like ridiculous testing of everything. Anyway.
[00:25:39] Yeah, I, it's, I'm enjoying it. Wonderful. Okay, I will order that book and probably scare myself half today, but yeah, probably then I'll just have to DM you 50 times a night. Panicking. Okay. Alright. Hustle. All right, and the hustle for today is our course, one of our signature courses visible, [00:26:00] which is where you can learn how to go into what we talked about today in far greater detail.
[00:26:05] It's a course you can get through and let, six hours, and it will be the last marketing course you ever need to take in your life. It teaches you the fundamental strategies of how to market yourself on the internet and grow an online business. We teach it in a way that no one else. Teaches it and it comes after like many years of trial and error and figuring out a system for ourselves.
[00:26:23] So it is called visible and you can find out more about it at and she.co/visible. Lovely, thanks. All right. We did strategies in next time and tactics. Exciting. Yes. Okay. Yes. Thanks. Bye bye. Okay. I totally have to go you Kennedy. Let me stop.