07 — DEVELOP YOUR STRATEGY

Don’t just work hard. Know where to put your effort.

You’ve chosen a direction.

Now comes one of the most important questions:

How are you actually going to approach it?

Because choosing a business model doesn’t automatically give you a strategy.

You could choose affiliate marketing and still have no idea:

• Who you’re trying to reach
• What you want to be known for
• What content to create
• Which platform to use
• How to generate leads
• How to follow up
• What to promote
• How much time to spend
• What to measure

You could work incredibly hard and still get nowhere.

Why?

Because effort without direction can be wasted effort.

This is where an old strategic principle becomes useful.

The Art of Strategy

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is a military text, but many of its underlying strategic ideas are not really about warfare.

They’re about:

Understanding the situation.

Knowing your resources.

Choosing where to concentrate them.

Avoiding unnecessary battles.

Recognising strengths and weaknesses.

Adapting when circumstances change.

Those principles can be remarkably useful when thinking about business.

We’re not going to pretend that building an online business is a war.

It isn’t.

But the strategic lesson is valuable:

Don’t commit your resources until you understand where they are best used.

Your resources are limited.

Your time is limited.

Your money is limited.

Your attention is limited.

Your energy is limited.

Your knowledge is limited.

So strategy is about deciding:

Where should I put them?

1. Know Yourself

We’ve already started this work.

You know more about:

• Your goals
• Your ambitions
• Your strengths
• Your weaknesses
• Your resources
• Your motivation
• Your skills
• Your experience
• Your limitations

This matters because your strategy needs to fit the person executing it.

For example, imagine two people want to build an affiliate business.

Person A enjoys writing and research.

Person B loves talking to people and making videos.

They might promote the same product.

But their strategies could look completely different.

Person A might focus on:

SEO → articles → Google traffic → email

Person B might focus on:

Video → social media → conversations → follow-up

Neither strategy is automatically better.

The better strategy is the one that person can actually execute consistently.

2. Know Your Environment

You also need to understand the environment in which you’re operating.

Ask:

Who are you competing for attention with?

Because you aren’t operating in an empty space.

Every day people are competing for attention on:

• Google
• YouTube
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• LinkedIn
• Email
• Websites
• Podcasts
• Advertising platforms

Your potential customer is surrounded by information.

Your challenge isn’t simply:

“How do I promote my product?”

It’s:

“Why should someone pay attention to me?”

That’s a strategic question.

Understand the Market

You also need to understand the market itself.

Ask:

Who has the problem I’m trying to solve?

How important is that problem?

Are people actively looking for solutions?

What solutions already exist?

What are competitors doing?

What are customers complaining about?

What do people like about existing solutions?

What do they dislike?

What could I do differently?

This isn’t about copying competitors.

It’s about understanding the environment before entering it.

3. Choose Your Battlefield

One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is trying to be everywhere.

They create:

• A Facebook page
• An Instagram account
• A TikTok account
• A YouTube channel
• A LinkedIn profile
• A blog
• An email list

Then they try to create content for all of them.

A few weeks later they’re exhausted.

Nothing is getting enough attention.

And they conclude:

“Social media doesn’t work.”

The problem may not have been social media.

The problem may have been strategy.

You Don’t Need Every Platform

You need to identify where your audience is and where you can realistically perform well.

For example:

If your audience searches Google for answers, SEO may make sense.

If they consume long-form educational content, YouTube may make sense.

If they spend their time on Facebook, Facebook may make sense.

If you are comfortable writing but hate video, don’t automatically build your strategy around video.

The question is:

Where can I reach the right people in a way I can sustain?

Choose One Primary Battlefield

For most beginners, I’d rather see:

one platform done consistently

than

five platforms done badly.

That doesn’t mean you can never expand.

It means you establish a base first.

For example:

Primary

YouTube

Supporting

Email

Later

Blog + other social platforms

Or:

Primary

Facebook

Supporting

Email

Later

YouTube

The exact combination depends on the person and the business.

But the principle remains:

Concentrate before you expand.

4. Choose Your Audience

A strategy becomes much easier when you know exactly who you’re trying to reach.

Instead of:

“I want to make money online.”

you might define:

“I want to help people in full-time employment who want to build an additional income before retirement.”

Now you have something to work with.

You can understand their:

• Problems
• Questions
• Fears
• Goals
• Objections
• Interests
• Language
• Behaviour

And you can create content specifically for them.

5. Choose Your Message

Once you know your audience, ask:

What do I want to become known for?

This is your positioning.

You might become known for:

• Helping beginners understand affiliate marketing
• Helping people build online income around a job
• Helping people avoid common network-marketing mistakes
• Helping people understand online business
• Helping people choose an online business model
• Helping people generate leads
• Helping small businesses get customers

You don’t need to be everything.

You need to be useful for something specific.

6. Choose Your Content Strategy

Now ask:

What information does my audience need?

Think about their journey.

They may start with a problem.

Then they have questions.

Then they research solutions.

Then they compare options.

Then they decide.

Your content should help them move through that journey.

For example:

Problem

“I need another source of income.”

Question

“Can I make money online while working full-time?”

Education

“How does affiliate marketing actually work?”

Comparison

“Affiliate marketing vs network marketing.”

Decision

“How to choose an affiliate programme.”

Action

“How to get started.”

That’s a content strategy.

You’re not randomly posting.

You’re helping someone move from problem → understanding → decision → action.

7. Choose Your Traffic Strategy

Once you know what content you want to create, decide how people will find it.

There are two broad approaches.

Organic

You earn attention through things such as:

• Search engines
• YouTube
• Social media
• Communities
• Referrals
• Consistent content

The advantage is that you’re building an asset over time.

The disadvantage is that it can take time.

Paid

You pay for attention through:

• Advertising
• Sponsored placements
• Lead generation
• Paid traffic

The advantage is speed and scale.

The disadvantage is cost.

And paid traffic can become expensive very quickly if your conversion system isn’t working.

Don’t Buy Traffic Before Understanding Conversion

This is a major strategic principle.

Suppose you pay for 1,000 visitors.

If your website converts poorly, you have simply paid to discover that your website converts poorly.

Before scaling traffic, understand:

Traffic → Lead → Conversation → Sale

Where is the problem?

If you have traffic but no leads:

Your lead-generation system may be the problem.

If you have leads but no conversations:

Your follow-up may be the problem.

If you have conversations but no sales:

Your offer, positioning, sales process or audience may be the problem.

Don’t automatically buy more traffic.

Diagnose first.

8. Build Your Conversion Path

You need to know what happens when someone becomes interested.

For example:

Content

↓

Website

↓

Lead magnet / registration

↓

Email follow-up

↓

Information

↓

Conversation

↓

Offer

↓

Customer

This doesn’t have to be complicated.

In fact, beginners often make things unnecessarily complicated.

Your objective is to create a simple path from:

attention

to

relationship

to

customer.

9. Decide How You Will Follow Up

You need a follow-up strategy.

That could include:

• Email
• Messages
• Content
• Webinars
• Calls
• Automated sequences
• Personal conversations

Ask:

How will someone who isn’t ready today continue hearing from me?

This is particularly important because most people won’t make a decision the first time they encounter you.

10. Decide What You Will Promote

This is where your strategy meets your chosen business model.

You might have:

• One primary product
• Several related products
• Multiple affiliate programmes
• Your own service
• Your own product
• A combination

But be careful.

More offers do not automatically mean more income.

Sometimes they simply create confusion.

If someone arrives at your website and sees twenty different things to buy, what should they do?

A better strategy might be:

One audience → one core problem → one primary solution.

Then expand once the foundation works.

11. Concentrate Your Resources

This is perhaps the most important strategic principle in this entire section.

You have limited resources.

So decide where they go.

For example, imagine you have ten hours available each week.

You could spend:

• 1 hour on Facebook
• 1 hour on Instagram
• 1 hour on TikTok
• 1 hour on LinkedIn
• 1 hour researching new opportunities
• 1 hour watching training
• 1 hour redesigning your website
• 1 hour creating content
• 1 hour following up
• 1 hour doing something else

You’ve been busy.

But have you built anything?

Instead, perhaps you spend:

4 hours creating useful content

2 hours engaging with your audience

2 hours following up

1 hour learning

1 hour measuring and improving

Now your effort is concentrated.

That’s strategy.

12. Don’t Fight Every Battle

Online business creates endless distractions.

A new platform appears.

A new AI tool appears.

A new advertising method appears.

A new opportunity appears.

Someone announces a new “secret strategy.”

Someone claims:

“This is the future.”

You don’t have to respond to everything.

Ask:

Does this help me achieve my current objective?

If the answer is no:

Not now.

That doesn’t mean never.

It means you’re protecting your focus.

13. Adapt

Having a strategy doesn’t mean refusing to change.

Quite the opposite.

A good strategy evolves.

You might discover:

• Your audience is different from what you expected.
• A particular platform doesn’t suit you.
• One type of content performs better.
• One offer converts better.
• Your customers have a different problem.
• Your assumptions were wrong.

That’s useful information.

Don’t become emotionally attached to your original plan.

Become attached to the objective.

The strategy can change.

Strategy Isn’t Guesswork

Your strategy should gradually become based on evidence.

Start with a hypothesis.

“I think this audience will respond to this message on this platform.”

Then test it.

Measure what happens.

Learn.

Adjust.

Test again.

This creates a cycle:

PLAN → ACT → MEASURE → LEARN → ADAPT → ACT

That’s how strategy improves.

Your Strategic Advantage

You don’t necessarily need more resources than everyone else.

You may simply need to use your resources better.

Imagine two people have:

• The same ten hours
• The same £100 budget
• The same platform
• The same product

One person spreads their effort across ten different activities.

The other concentrates on one audience, one message and one acquisition channel.

The second person may have a significant strategic advantage.

Not because they have more.

Because they are more focused.

Your YNMM Strategy Map

Now bring everything you’ve learned together.

Complete this:

My Goal

What am I trying to achieve?

My Audience

Who am I trying to help?

Their Problem

What problem am I helping them solve?

My Message

What do I want to become known for?

My Primary Platform

Where will I concentrate my attention?

My Content

What useful information will I consistently provide?

My Traffic Strategy

How will people discover me?

My Lead Strategy

How will I turn attention into leads?

My Follow-Up Strategy

How will I stay connected with interested people?

My Offer

What am I ultimately offering?

My Weekly Commitment

How much time will I realistically invest?

My Key Metrics

What numbers will tell me whether I’m progressing?

The “Not Now” List

This is a powerful exercise.

Write down the things you have decided not to focus on right now.

For example:

I’m not going to:

• Build five social-media accounts
• Promote ten different programmes
• Buy every new marketing tool
• Change business model every month
• Chase every new trend
• Spend hours redesigning my website
• Learn every advertising platform
• Join every opportunity I discover

Why?

Because saying no to distractions allows you to say yes to your strategy.

Your First Strategic Test

Before moving forward, explain your strategy in one paragraph.

You should be able to say something like:

“I want to help __________ who are struggling with __________. I’ll reach them primarily through __________. I’ll create content about __________ and use it to generate __________. I’ll build relationships through __________ and ultimately offer __________. I’ll dedicate approximately __________ hours each week and measure __________.”

If you can’t explain your strategy simply, it probably isn’t clear enough yet.

The Mentor’s Question

Imagine I asked you:

“What are you going to do next Monday?”

Not someday.

Not eventually.

Not when you’ve finished another course.

Next Monday.

Could you tell me?

Because strategy eventually has to become action.

A strategy that never gets executed is just an idea.

The Bigger Principle

Sun Tzu’s strategic thinking can be reduced to a few principles that are extremely useful in business:

Know yourself.

Understand your strengths, weaknesses, resources and limitations.

Know your environment.

Understand your audience, market and competition.

Choose your battlefield.

Don’t try to reach everyone everywhere.

Concentrate your resources.

Put meaningful effort behind a small number of priorities.

Don’t fight every battle.

Protect your time, money and attention.

Adapt.

Use evidence to improve your strategy.

And perhaps the most important:

Choose your battles before your battles choose you.

Your Strategy Is Now Taking Shape

You started this journey by asking:

“How can I make money online?”

That’s a very broad question.

You’ve now narrowed it down.

You understand yourself.

You understand your resources.

You understand what drives you.

You’ve learned from your past.

You understand the fundamentals of online business.

You’ve chosen a direction.

And now you’ve begun developing a strategy.

That’s a completely different starting point.

You’re no longer simply looking for an opportunity.

You’re building a plan.

NEXT: 08 — BUILD YOUR PLAN

A strategy tells you where you’re going and how you intend to get there.

A plan tells you:

What are you actually going to do?

We’ll turn your strategy into:

• A 90-day objective
• Monthly priorities
• Weekly actions
• Daily activities
• Skills to develop
• Resources required
• Metrics to track
• Milestones to achieve

Because eventually, thinking has to become doing.

Build your plan →