Why does the mix-up cost money?
Owners mix the two words up, and the mix-up costs money. "Our strategy is Instagram" is a tactic with no road under it, and it leads to a year of posting with no way to tell whether it worked. "Our strategy is to get past customers buying again, and Instagram is one of the ways" has a number attached, visits per customer, and Instagram can be judged against it. When the number does not move, you change the tactic and keep the strategy. When the strategy is wrong, no tactic will save it.
The distinction also decides what to do when something fails. A failed tactic is cheap: stop it, try the next one on the same road. A failed strategy is expensive, because every tactic under it was wasted. So strategies deserve the evidence, and tactics deserve the speed.
How is a strategy chosen?
From the numbers, not from habit. The question is which gap, closed, moves the goal most for the least money and time. A business with plenty of enquiries and a poor close rate has a different strategy from one with no enquiries at all. A shop whose customers buy once has a different strategy from one whose customers forget to come back. Each strategy should be able to say which gap it was picked to close, and the evidence should be the business's own numbers, not a competitor's website.
What are the cafe's two roads? (example figures)
A cafe in Melbourne wants to go from $9,000 to $12,000 a week.
| Layer | The cafe | The number it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | $12,000 a week by 30 June | Weekly takings |
| Strategy one | Win the weekday lunch trade from the four office buildings nearby | Weekday lunch covers, 140 a day today |
| Tactics under it | A Meta ad to a 1 km radius, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm; a lunch offer in the window; a loyalty card for the fifth lunch | Each one judged by lunch covers |
| Strategy two | Get the 1,400 people on the email list coming twice a month instead of once | Visits per customer |
| Tactics under it | A Tuesday email; a weekend-only pastry; a text to the 300 who have not visited in 60 days | Each one judged by repeat visits |
If the Meta ad brings nobody, the cafe drops it and tries a sandwich board on the office corner, and strategy one stands. If lunch covers do not move at all in three months, with three tactics tried, the strategy was wrong, and the cafe looks at the numbers again for a different road.
How do strategies work in CoraVision?
In CoraVision, a strategy is one of the things Cora recommends you pursue for the next three months, chosen from your goal and the gaps Cora finds in your numbers. Each strategy becomes a project with its own action plan, and the tactics are the steps in it, which Cora teaches one at a time on your own screen. The plan is 12 months in three layers, direction, plan and tactics, and the check-in is weekly.
Questions
How many strategies should a small business have?
Two or three at a time. One is fragile, because if it is wrong the quarter is lost. Four or more and the owner's hours are spread too thin for any of them to show a result.
What makes a strategy wrong?
It is chosen from habit or from what a competitor does, rather than from the business's own numbers. A strategy should be able to say which gap in the numbers it was picked to close.
How long do you give a strategy?
About three months, with a number to watch each week. Shorter than that and ads and search have not had time to work. Longer with no movement and you are paying for a wrong guess.