Making sure your social media feed is showing the right images and you are saying the right things. Having your questionnaire ask the perfect questions. Going to the right conferences, making sure you are ticking all of the boxes in the collateral/pr/advertising bucket. All of these are tactics. Tactics are what you do to achieve a near term goal, maybe even a medium term one. What tactics are not is a vision of where you want to go. That is strategy. As tactics become ever more powerful and immediate in their validation, strategy seems to fall away. Why focus on vision when results are at your fingertips? I get it.
Except. Tactics are available to everyone and if they are effective you can be sure they will be adopted by everyone much sooner than later. Podcasts have been around for a while but over the last three years, they have exploded and now there are over 700,000 podcasts available for download. The average podcast has 124 listeners. If you thought podcasting was your ticket to getting noticed, that ship has sailed. Of course, you should still podcast because it is an important part of your strategy of owning your niche and your message, just not because it is going to get you noticed.
My 12 year old son took his first math test recently. He understood the material very well but I told him that more often than not those that do not know the material as well as others do better on the test. The reason is strategy. Most students want to answer every question and when they are challenged, spend more time on that question(s) than the ones they know cold. Inevitably, they run out of time working on the ones they know really well instead of the ones they are challenged by. It should be the other way around. Of course, there has to be a baseline knowledge and proficiency but strategy almost always tells the tale. Get the ones right you know you are right on first and best, and then work your way through the more challenging ones. However, the only way to do that is to know time and value each question equivalent to its weight on the test, which, most often, is the same. If you have an hour and there are twelve questions, five minutes per question with extra time, if any, spent on the ones you know best.
Sounds simple and obvious right? Except, let’s apply it to your creative business. How often does a very challenging client get more of your effort than a dream client? Do you have a process that makes sure that great clients get treated better than not great clients? Great clients respect your process and make decisions as and when asked. Not-so-great clients, well, do not. The whole point is that strategy drives decisions which determines tactics. Shifting strategy is a big, big deal, tactics are almost made to be malleable.
Why talk about this? Because there is a huge investment in improving and overwhelming creative business with the power of tools — and all of the efficiencies and opportunities they provide. Lost in the conversation is what for and to what end. I am actually a fan of Homepolishand appreciate the value it provided to interior designers and clients alike. But have a look at the struggles now confronting itwith the pressure to scale and new competition. As with any platform, being dependent on its success for yours can be a wonderful tactic, and an awful strategy if you did not plan for what happens next.
We are inundated with the unending need to tell your story, define your mission, your vision, why you do what you do. For those of you looking for some amazing guidance on the subject fo branding, check out Susan Federspiel from The Brand Pixie. Decades in the business of telling the most compelling story for her clients. Susan is a hidden gem in developing a supremely powerful brand if there ever was one.
I recognize the need people like Susan fill and completely appreciate it, but the equal if not more important question is to what end? “We do it this way as a creative force and here’s why” The purpose of using the tactics you are using to accomplish the strategy you have decided on and why it matters. Alignment of purpose and practice. Of course, it may not work out and you might bomb the test. But like middle school math, there will always be another test and the better the strategy and the more practical the tactic the better the chance next time and the time after that. This is the most important point of all: determined strategy diligently reviewed with dispassion but compassion leads to the opportunity you cannot yet see. Tactics alone will never do that for you, your art or your creative business. Smart is important, focus and vision more so.
