To illustrate the differences between working from a tactical and a strategic perspective, I’d like you to imagine the following: Think of a set of Lego bricks. When you buy a Lego set, you open the box to find hundreds of blocks of various sizes and miscellaneous pieces that can be molded into just about anything your imagination allows. But also inside that box is a booklet with step-by-step instructions on how to build whatever you see pictured on the front of the box, whether it’s a red Ferrari F430 or an entire city.

The option of which path to choose is completely up to you. In both cases, you are playing with Legos. But only one of those approaches comes ready to be approached from a strategic perspective: the one where you follow the instructions and build what’s in the box.

definition of the difference

By definition, a strategy is a plan of action to achieve a goal. Tactics, on the other hand, are the individual methods or activities by which you carry out your plan. Strategy is the big picture. The tactic is thoroughness. So when it comes to your real estate business, you must first establish your strategy or overall goal setting before you can determine the tactics you will use to achieve your goals. The key is to make your tactics always serve your strategy. In other words, make sure that every action you take is part of a larger plan. Individual tactics should never be carried out without fitting into a larger scheme.

Here’s another analogy to help you better understand the difference between the two. Working from a tactical perspective is like being in the heart of downtown. Everywhere you look, your view is obscured by giant skyscrapers, limiting your ability to see very far in any direction. Working from a strategic perspective is like getting on a helicopter and flying above those buildings with clear skies as far as the eye can see. It is a panoramic view without any limitation. The higher the elevation you rise to, the more strategic and less tactical your perspective becomes.

Real Estate Tactics

Some examples of tactics used by real estate agents are making cold calls, holding open houses, asking for referrals, sitting on the floor, using sales scripts – the list could go on and on. In themselves, these activities can generate some business, or they can just waste your time. But once you start looking at them from a strategic perspective and with a clear intent in mind, you can tweak your individual tactics to serve your overall real estate marketing strategy.

My concern is that I feel like I’m seeing too many agents lately working from a tactical perspective rather than a strategic one. Most of the real estate training out there focuses solely on tactics, so it’s no surprise that many agents end up focusing all their energy on tactics instead of the more important overall strategy. My goal with this article is to make you think strategically and, in turn, make your efforts more productive and fruitful.

What are you trying to achieve?

On a daily basis, you may ask yourself “What should I do today to make money?” It’s a good question but there’s no good answer, because it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. If your strategy is to survive another day in business, almost any tactic will do. If your strategy is to look busy, you can do errands all day and consider yourself successful. That’s why the first step in approaching your career strategically is defining what success means to you.

When defining your vision of success, be specific:

“Success is working 35-40 hour weeks, having my systems in place to generate business in excess of $200,000 in annual gross commissions. I will take four weeks off at various times of the year and never work more than six days a week. I will take a three-day weekend each month and not call the office or check my messages when I’m not working.”

The Strategic Open House

Once you’ve established your definition of success, it’s much easier to define the tactics you need to get there. But the strategic vs. the tactical debate extends further into areas you may never think about. Open houses, for example. For most agents, open houses are necessary evils. The owner of the house demands that you hold an open house, so you agree and end up sitting on a stool at the bar for four hours reading the newspaper while some neighbors and curious people walk by. This typical scenario is holding an open house from a tactical perspective.

When you approach it from a strategic perspective, everything changes. If you decide to hold an open house, you can also make the most of it and make it part of a larger strategy. For example, you can use an open house as part of a strategy to build name recognition, establish yourself as a local expert, and make a positive impression on homeowners surrounding your listing. Once you have a strategy, your tactics follow the course. You send a series of invitations to the residents of the street where your listing is located, making an “event” of the open house. Make sure your signs are visible throughout the neighborhood on the day of the open house. You have your brochure and other valuable information gathered in packets to hand out to people who attend. You also create a follow-up plan to make sure you add these people to your direct mail group and keep in touch with them after your initial positive meeting.

Or maybe your strategy is to use an open house to get a reduction in the price of the house. What tactics would you employ to achieve that goal? Here’s one: When a prospective buyer walks in the door, give them a brochure about the house, as well as an anonymous questionnaire. If he asks you to complete the questionnaire as you walk around the house, he will focus your attention and provide you with valuable information. The most important question you can ask is “What price would you buy this house for today?” The answer you will likely get is that the price needs to be lower before they will consider buying the house. Even five or six responses that are lower than your current asking price can be used as ammunition to initiate a price cut that is so essential in today’s market.

Open yourself to new possibilities

When you start looking at your career strategically instead of tactically, you take advantage of all kinds of new possibilities. You need to get out of your daily tactics and really take a look at what you want to achieve and what is possible. Get out of your box and determine what you really want to do.

The key is that once you have a goal in mind, you need to determine what tactics to employ to achieve your goal. Even floor time can be approached from a strategic real estate marketing perspective. Instead of sitting in the office answering phones and waiting for that “win” call, you can devise a strategy to follow up with each person who calls you. Ask them if you can send them a copy of your personal brochure and a valuable special report you’ve created that you think might help them in the process. Suddenly, you’re engaging the caller and helping to solve their problems while building your brand and name recognition in the process.

It all starts by asking the simple questions:

• “If I’m going to do a tactic like floor time, how can I do it in line with my overall strategy?”

• “How will I follow up on each caller?”

• “Do I have a special report or something else I can offer you?”

• “What can I do to make my time on the floor better and more productive?”

The bottom line

The bottom line is that you are trying to sell property. You can approach this goal differently each day, you can try using the “tactic of the week” approach, or you can come up with a strategy that allows you to continually progress in your career. I want to encourage you to take a strategic view of your career and start asking yourself how everything you do fits into your overall plan. You may find that your tactics don’t change too radically, but the results of your tactics will be vastly improved.

Exercise: Try to think about everything you did yesterday and determine whether or not your actions were aligned with your long-term career goals. I’d love to know that he’s on the right track, spending much of his time working on his business instead of being in it. But I suspect that’s not the case for most. In any case, it’s a valuable exercise that can help inspire you to work more strategically in the future.