If your business is not on the Fortune 500 800 lb GORILLA, as most are not, forget about out-spending or “investing” as a plan to win. It is risky at best. Pitching Venture capital with “marketing investment” as the use of funds is the equivalent of a Hail Mary desperation pass. They rarely work in football either.
And if you’re not a low cost producer, forget competing on price. Even if you are, if you have a large cut-throat competitor, they may match your price anyway, just because the can. Market share, or “Power” matters in business. It’s the 5th P of Marketing the marketing professors should have taught you.
When your small, you need to use your built in advantages “size” gives you:
Speed.
Service.
Caring.
Innovation, IF you focus and have the discipline.
Forget classic marketing “paying for impressions.”
Get out and Hustle the buzz. Tell your story and earn the media.
If you can’t earn it, improve your story. Then Hustle Harder.
Invest in Product, where you have 2 choices: Make it better, or make it cheaper.
Above all else, make sure you are DIFFERENT.
Want a great intro to this topic from Hollywood? Who other than Rocky, on #6. His trainer was a realist, laid it all out and realized his options for winning were limited, so he picked the only path that would give them a shot. In summary, the only Plan for winning imaginable. The rest was execution. Sometimes, speeches like this could be deemed de-motivating. When you think about it, they are actually empowering.
Businesses need the same focus. Don’t make it harder by locking into a game plan that can’t be won.
“There’s no sense going down that same old road again. You need speed, you don’t have it. Your knees can’t take the pounding, so hard running is out. You have calcium build-up, and arthritis in your neck, so sparring’s out. So what we’ll be calling on, is good old fashion blunt force trauma. Horsepower. Heavy duty, cast iron, pile driving punches that will hurt so much it will rattle his ancestors. Every time you hit him with a shot its gotta feel like he tried kissing the express train. Yea, lets start building some hurting bombs!”
Never underestimate shared success of a team……it can be individual training but the team all collectively works towards one goal: Success equals “Getting Stronger”