Most people mistake tactics for strategy. They think strategy means having a plan. It doesn’t. Strategy means arranging conditions so you win regardless of tactics.
In chess, strategy is controlling the center and developing pieces so you have more options than your opponent. Tactics are the specific move sequences. You can execute brilliant tactics and still lose if your strategic position is weak. You can execute mediocre tactics and win if your strategic position is strong.
In Digital Marketing and Design Strategy, the same principle applies. Tactics are the campaigns, the content, the ad creative. Strategy is positioning yourself so those tactics have asymmetric impact—more result per unit of effort than your competitors get from the same effort.
At WordReward, our strategic advantage isn’t that we’re better at running Facebook ads or designing websites than other agencies. It’s that we’ve structured client relationships and service delivery so we capture compounding value that one-off project shops don’t.
When we build a loyalty program for a client, we’re not just delivering a project. We’re embedding ourselves into their customer retention mechanics, which means recurring revenue and strategic dependency. When we create brand systems instead of individual designs, we’re making ourselves necessary for maintaining consistency across all future materials.
This is strategy: choosing where to compete so the game is structurally favorable.
Most agencies compete on execution quality, which is tactics. Marginally better work gets marginally better results. We compete on structural position. Being the agency that understands a client’s loyalty mechanics deeply is a different game than being the agency that makes slightly prettier Instagram posts.
The same thinking applies to Running a Business with ADHD. I can’t compete on consistent daily execution—my neurology doesn’t support it. So I arrange operations to win on strategic clarity and system design instead. I build frameworks the team executes within, rather than executing everything myself.
In off-grid in Nuweiba, the constraint is unreliable connectivity. I can’t win by being the most responsive. So I win by having information architecture that works asynchronously. The strategic position makes tactical limitations irrelevant.
The test of real strategy: does it make you harder to compete with regardless of execution quality?
If your advantage disappears when someone works harder or spends more, that’s not strategy, that’s just current resource allocation. Real strategy creates situations where even perfect tactical execution by competitors doesn’t overcome your structural position.
This is why “just outwork everyone” isn’t strategic advice. Work ethic is a tactic. It’s one input among many. Strategy is choosing terrain where your inputs have multiplied impact and competitor inputs are discounted.
Most businesses fail because they optimize tactics without establishing strategy. They get very good at things that don’t create durable advantage. They compete in commodity spaces and wonder why margins compress. They confuse activity with progress.
Strategy is doing less, but in ways that matter more.
For WordReward, this means saying no to project types where we’d compete on execution quality alone, and yes to engagements where we can build structural position. For Psychology, Behavior, and Systems Thinking, it means understanding that human decisions are made on strategic positioning—people choose options that feel like winning positions, not just good execution.
The hard part isn’t understanding this intellectually. It’s having the discipline to pass on tactically attractive opportunities that are strategically weak. Revenue today that undermines strategic position tomorrow is a bad trade. But it requires confidence in your strategy to turn down immediate money.
Most people never develop that confidence because they never articulate their strategy clearly enough to know whether a given opportunity strengthens or weakens it.
Related: Trade-offs and Strategic Choices, Why Most Marketing Isn’t Strategic, Structural Decisions vs Motivational Ones
