Strategy vs tactics is an ongoing conversation with many business owners. I've blogged on strategy vs tactics in a few other posts simply because it's vital to a good growing business:

• strategy vs tactics (example and definition)
• The Art of War Definition

As a recent example of the importance of strategy:

I was coaching Will from Tokyo on Tuesday morning. He's a successful best-selling author and speaker and a 7th Dan in Akido and has done a huge amount of work consulting with many clients. Check his web site at Agili for an interesting site that mixes Mind Mapping, Akido and calligraphy.

Will was the second person to be trained as a Guerilla Marketing coach by Jay Conrad Levinson. Now the interesting thing about this is that Will is open to be coached himself.

The reason?

It's the same one that Gary Halbert used when he was discovered at a Copywriters Seminar For Beginners: If you just pick up one new idea that justifies the cost.

As I said Will has produced an enormous and diverse body of work.

During our coaching session one of the words Will used quite a bit was "focus". He felt he needed more focus in what he was doing.

In business terms to get focus you need strategies.

And as I pointed out to Will once you have an overall strategy you can see what you're doing and whether your tactics help or hinder your strategy.

What Does This Mean To Business Owners?

It means that any tactic (activity) not aimed at delivering the strategy needs to be looked at under a microscope.

If you still believe it's required as a tactic decide whether you can delegate it. Because if you do it yourself the time you spend on that tactic is time you no longer have for another tactic that does deliver your strategy.

One man bands often stay one man bands because they can do everything they need to do themselves. Yet this "doing" is not strategic and they become so busy with stuff that's not core to their business they have less time to improve the business and make it more attractive to customers.

If It's Not Strategic Delegate It

Yet there are a number of ways to get stuff done:

• Get a virtual PA
• Use a telesales company for leads and research
• Use web site developers
• Use ghost writers for books, articles, white papers and blogs

And of course if you want the least expensive way to do things the Internet can provide. So for example these sites can often deliver a project for you very inexpensively:

• www.guru.com
• www.freelance.com
• www.elance.com
• www.pajamanation.com

Projects seem limited only by your imagination. So you can get software, books, articles, web sites, white pages, case studies, advert - almost anything!