Tactical versus Strategic Thinking in Real Estate Marketing: The Fundamental Difference

To illustrate the differences between working from a tactical and a strategic perspective, I would like you to visualize the following: Think of a set of Lego blocks. 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 depicted on the front of the box, be it a red Ferrari F430 or an entire city.

Which path option you choose is entirely 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 directions and build what’s in the box.

Defining 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 tactics are the minutiae. Therefore, 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 every action you take is part of a larger plan. Individual tactics should never be done without fitting into a larger scheme.

Here is 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. Wherever 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 into a helicopter and flying over the rooftops of those buildings with clear skies as far as the eye can see. It is a panoramic view without limitations. The higher the elevation you rise to, the more strategic and less tactical your perspective will become.

Real estate tactics

Examples of tactics used by real estate agents are cold calling, holding open houses, asking for references, sitting on the floor, using sales scripts; the list could go on and on. For themselves, these activities can generate some business or can just waste your time. But once you start looking at them from a strategic perspective and with a clear intention in mind, you can modify your individual tactics to serve your overall real estate marketing strategy.

My concern is that I feel like lately I’m seeing too many agents working from a tactical rather than a strategic perspective. Most real estate training focuses solely on tactics, so it is no wonder that many agents end up focusing all their energy on tactics rather than the bigger, overarching 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 earn money?” It is a good question, but there is no good answer, because it all depends on what you are trying to achieve. If your strategy is to survive another day in business, just about any tactic will do. If your strategy is to appear busy, you can do business 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 for success, be specific:

“Success is working 35 to 40 hours a week, having my systems in place to generate business in excess of $ 200,000 in gross annual commissions. I will take four weeks off at various times during the year and will never work more than six. days a week. I will take a three-day weekend each month and will not call the office or check my messages when I am not working. I will get a new car every 24 months and spend at least 15 business days a year attending seminars and the general improvement of my business. “

The strategic open day

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 where it may never occur to you. Open houses, for example. For most officers, open houses are necessary evils. The owner demands that you hold an open house, so you agree and end up sitting on a bar stool for four hours reading the newspaper while some neighbors and lookyloos pass 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 have 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 the homeowners surrounding your listing. Once you have a strategy, your tactics will run their course. Mail a series of invitations to neighbors up and down the street where your ad is located, making an open house “event.” Make sure your signs are visible throughout the neighborhood on open house day. You have your brochure and other valuable information packed into packets to give out to people who attend. You also create a follow-up plan to make sure you add these people to your direct mail farm so that you can stay in touch with them after your positive initial meeting.

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

Open yourself to new possibilities

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

The key is that once you have a goal in mind, you must 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 “jackpot” call, you can come up with a strategy to follow up with each person who calls. Ask if you can send them a copy of your personal brochure and a valuable special report that you have created that you think could help them in the process. Suddenly, you are engaging the caller and helping solve their problems while building your brand and name recognition in the process.

It all starts with asking yourself the simple questions:

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

• “How will I follow up on each person who calls?”

• “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 properties. You can approach this goal differently every day, you can try using the “tactic of the week” approach, or you can use a strategy that allows you to continually progress in your career as your motto. I want to encourage you to take a strategic vision of your career and start wondering how everything you do fits into your overall plan. You may find that your tactics do not change too radically, but the results of your tactics will improve greatly.

Exercise: Try to think about everything you did yesterday and determine if your actions were in line with your long-term career goals. I would love to know that you are on the right track and that you spend a lot of your time working on your business instead of doing it. But I suspect that is not the case for most. In any case, it is a valuable exercise that can inspire you to work more strategically in the future.