59. How to talk strategy when your clients want to talk tactics [Consulting]

I had someone reach out to me on Clarity.fm today (I had set up an account a long time ago but never used it). 

We booked a call to talk about how he can sell his India-based business outsourcing services into Canada/US.

All of his questions were tactical. Things like, "how do I get more US and Canadian traffic to his site, how many keywords this, how many backlinks that."

The main problem, however, wasn't the tactics. It was his positioning. 

He sold everything to everyone.

There's no way someone so broadly positioned would ever be able to build a predictable flywheel of leads being so broadly positioned unless they built it slowly over time.

So we balanced the conversation between strategy (things like focus and specialization) and tactics (some education on how SEO works, some website tips, etc.)

New prospects almost always come to you with tactical problems and ideas. But the solutions really lie in creating a strategy around getting a result first. 

The tactics become obvious once you nail the strategy.  

Do you notice the same thing when prospects come to you? How do you handle it?

Yours,

—k