“Have you tried this new tactic or tool?”

This is what most of us are consistently hearing about when discussing solving specific business problems that come up in our lives.

It’s what I typically refer to as the “magic brush”. But in reality it’s not going to solve our problems just create more noise and confusion in the process.

Rather than looking for a new and sexy tactic, take a step back and look at things from a strategic perspective. I’ve found that I already have all the tools that I need but I need to apply them in a different direction.

Begin with the end in mind and see the results that you are after!

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Transcript

Adam Liette
What's up smooth operators Welcome to this episode, hope you're having a great start to your year we are already in week two, where's the time going? That first week was a blur for me, I don't know about you, just getting back into the office getting back in the swing of things feeling a bit just over my head and underwater a couple of times, as we you know, try to get our arms around the coming year try to start implementing the things that we may have come up with in the previous year or starting, you know, completely new plans and strategies at the start of the new year. And this is always an interesting time just to take a step back. And if you're starting to feel overwhelmed, if you're starting to feel like you're being swallowed up by everything, it's probably a likely culprit for that, because most of what we actually do is very tactically based, like where you were working, like just implementing things or creating things or you know, in programs, doing the button pushing and creating. So that's all tactical, that's the stuff we're doing at the ground level. And tactical has its place. And it's something that we must do period. And you know, you have to implement your ideas. And what I found was, if I'm not working on strategy or tactics from a strategic perspective, it can get quite taxing over time. And I can start to feel like I'm being swallowed up by the whole darn thing.

Like it's, it's weird to really describe except that this feels all encompassing, like everything that you're doing is just being just swallowed up by by busyness. And that's because honestly, as I take a step back from it, you know, most of what we hear most of the tips that you see, or this or that it's all very tactically focused. Looking at direct approaches, I can quote unquote, solve the problems in your business, whether it be a marketing problem, the person problem and operations problem, it all becomes very tactically focused, hey, you got to do this, you got to get this tool, you got to try this tactic, blah, blah, blah, we can think of multiple different examples. And there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these, like you have to get tactically oriented in order to actually implement a strategy. But I've found that when I'm feeling the most overwhelmed and when my team seems to be just kind of going through the motions is because they don't see the greater strategical objectives. So I like to work backwards from a strategic objective. Rather than finding a strategic objective from a tactic. We often do the opposite, where we'll hear about a new tool, hear about a new approach and be like, Okay, how can I employ this into my strategy, we need to look at things the other way around, begin with the end in mind, as Stephen Covey is famous for saying, start with what we want this to look like at its ideal end state, and then work backwards from there to employ the tools that we need to do it.

So you know, just as a concrete example, if you have a marketing objective, you're trying to sell X number of units. Well, like if we work backwards, from the math perspective, we know our conversion rates, if you want to sell X number of units, you need this many leads, you need this much traffic. Okay, now, how do you get that traffic? Now we start applying tactical approaches to that, well, you also have to like move that traffic through, you have to move those leads through. So what's that lead flow look like? What kind of tool are you using for that lead flow, you see how we just did that the opposite way, how we started from a strategic objective of sales, and then move backwards in order to see how we're going to not only service those leads, but then queue up those leads in order to eventually sell to them. So what I often find is, if I start the other way around, I just started like throwing tactics at the wall, often find a jumbled mess. And I see this, especially if I think like long term like three to six month marketing plans, where if I just like throw tactics on the wall, and I'm looking at this quote unquote, strategy, and it just feels like fluff. It feels like I'm doing everything, but I don't really know. Like, I don't know really the touch points yet. But it's taking a step back, looking at the strategic objectives, and then moving into tactical application to fill in those holes in my strategy.

Basically, tactics are then used to fill in those holes as you see them imagining that strategy working out over time. So like using different visual aids, visual aids work well for me, because I can see the holes I can See how things are falling apart or maybe like there's a big gap within my plan. And then now I know I need a tactic. Now I need a no, I need a tool in order to bridge that gap to bring the project from this stage to this stage. So it's a number of different things. It's it's finding that the tools either misappropriated, like they're not being applied at the proper time within, within the strategy, I may not have the right tools or tactics that I actually needed. Once I analyze things from a broader perspective, the tactics often need to be applied in a very specific way as well, depending on where you're coming from, depending on what you're trying to do and what the end objective actually is. And I find there that I discover supportive tactics that were required to make things work fully. So I may not have been imagining a tactic at the outset. But as I look at the strategic objectives, and I look at the big picture, I see that gap, I see that hole. And now I know I need to come up with a tactic in order to fill it.

So you can see this in multiple areas of our business, often we think about it in marketing, but you can think about it in how you're running your team, how you're communicating how you're hiring, literally any type of strategic, strategic objective you're trying to achieve. There are different tactics to apply to it. And like I said, start with the end in mind, start with where you're trying to go to, if you're having trouble doing this from the big perspective, and I get that this is a different way of thinking for many people think much smaller.

So start with a objective in your own life. Like let's say you have an objective, it is the new year, right? Let's say like you want to lose weight this year. Okay, are you want to get back in shape? get in better shape. Okay, so that is our end objective? What does that look like? Give it numbers. So, get in better shape means nothing, run a half marathon mean something. So a name it, identify it, give it something quantifiable, and something that you can measure to now if your objective is that now work backwards from how you're going to achieve that objective? What are all the tactics required? So if my objective is to run a half marathon, what are some of the tactics that I need to apply? A I know I need to be on some kind of a running plan, some kind of a training plan in order to get there? Well, there's my, you know, paint feet on the pavement kind of tactic, right? But there's a whole lot of other stuff, I got to do too, right? I need to potentially invest in new running shoes, because my old ones are beat up, I need to find a place to work out during the cold months, because I'd really don't like the cold. And I like to run at four o'clock in the morning when it's just really dark. Okay, I need a place to run that. So I need to find a gym membership, right? So you go through that process. What else though, I think a little bit deeper, I need to look at my nutrition and you look at hydration, I need to potentially think about, like different mental games that we often have to play with ourselves. When running distances. See how I started with an objective get in shape. But naming the objective giving a quantifiable information. Now working backwards and looking at tactical application of tools than they need to do in order to achieve that objective when you start looking at everything in your life through this framework, and practice with daily things.

Now you can apply that same framework, apply that same mindset to what you're doing in your business. And now you're going to be able to achieve those things with a higher degree of confidence because it's stuff you've already done. Someone once joked with me, Adam you operationalize like everything you do. And I do like my mind works that way. Even with, you know, it's near the end of the NFL season, like I watch football, from a mindset where I'm going to maximize time efficiency. Because if a game starts at one, I know how many commercials are in there, there's halftime, there's breaks for referees to, you know, do play reviews and all that. So if the game starts at one, I'm gonna hit record on the DVR, I'm gonna go do some other stuff. And I'm gonna come back to that game at three o'clock. And I'm gonna be able to skip through all the commercials, skip through the halftime skip through the stuff I don't want to watch. And I'm still gonna watch the entire game every single last second play of it. But I'm gonna skip all the other stuff. So I'm gonna maximize my time efficiency.

So start looking at your life from an operational framework and maximizing efficiency and the different tactics you can use to do it, you start seeing it everywhere you go. And that my friend is where you're winning. That is where you're going to achieve a higher level of standard this coming year. And once you start doing that in your own personal life, it's going to crawl over into your business or vice versa. For me, it was the other way around.

I started doing it in the business and I ended up bringing it into my personal life but Do whatever works for you. The bottom line is think more strategically, think less tactically, and apply tactics towards a strategy rather than try to figure out a strategy from a tactic. Thanks so much for joining me. I hope to see you next time. In the meantime, please go to Adam Liette to.com If you're bored in the new year or you have a couple moments, jump on over to iTunes, give us a review. I genuinely appreciate it every little bit helps to get more momentum and to reach more ears. Thank you so much and until next time operators lead the way.