HOW TO WIN BUSINESS LIKE A WARRIOR

Who is the enemy? That is the first question any marketing strategy should deal with. Donald W Hendon’s book demonstrates how marketers need to use military thinking to achieve marketing objectives. In this book, you’ll learn how to apply the military strategies and tactics of Sun-Tzu, Mao Tse-Tung, the US Army and others to attack your competitors, invade attractive markets, and defend market share to maximise your sales and profits. The Way of the Warrior in Business provides assessment tools, checklists, action plans, and other marketing weapons that you can use to win price wars, product wars, promotion wars, and channels of distribution wars.

The 228-page book, which is divided into 12 chapters, is transformational and it will change how you lead your company. The first chapter helps you develop the killer instinct that turns innocent lambs into powerful business warriors who win big and win often. In chapter 2, you’ll learn that the business warriors, who are the biggest winners, go after and conquer competitors, who are easily conquered. They do this by distracting and deceiving their enemies, by confusing them, and by using tactics that work. In the next chapter, you become the 800-pound gorilla in your industry by following the 11 planning steps in this chapter. Chapter 4 highlights how to describe your brand as if it were a human being, market segmentation of the mind, and why it’s so important to be first.

Chapter 5 suggests, if you’re not that creative, there are many ways to become a lot more creative, including becoming more like a child, brainstorming–a much better way than you’ve ever seen, etc. The next chapter gives answers to questions such as: Is my brand a star, question mark, problem child, cash cow, or dog? How can I find out without guessing and by using very simple math? How can I keep a star in orbit? Chapter 7 prepares you for guerrilla warfare. You’ll find out what tactics work best in battlegrounds. There are 70 of them and you’ll learn to master them. They include six groups of tactics: eight manoeuvring, 13 attacking, 11 pursuit, 11 defence, 18 retreat, and nine rejuvenating. And you’ll also learn about five kinds of attacks–enveloping, frontal, wing, flank, and guerrilla. The chapter closes with the six stages of battle.

In chapter 8, you’ll learn how Sam Walton, the legendary founder of Wal-Mart, used Mao Tse-Tung’s guerrilla tactics to become the number one retailer in the world. The rest of this chapter gives you 43 valuable tactics to use in the three phases of guerrilla warfare. In the next chapter, there are six kinds of big dogs, and this chapter tells you how to keep them apart. Here are some of the things you’ll learn in Chapter 10, which are: How to win a price war–4 ways; When to charge high prices, when to charge low prices–16 rules-of-thumb; 15 reasons new products fail and 38 things you can do about it, etc. Chapter 11 contains the 365 most powerful deal-making tactics picked by tens of thousands of executives, who have attended writer’s seminars in 36 nations on six continents. Both big dogs and guerrillas have used them to win big when they wheel and deal on the job. In the last chapter, the writer reviews what he mentioned in the earlier chapters.

The book also provides you the most valuable information the author offers his clients: Extremely specific negotiating tactics–the unique tactics most favoured by executives in 54 nations when they negotiate. In a nutshell, the book can be of use to all those looking to change their marketing mindset and grow their pipeline of customers.

By Ashok Kumar