Consider selling products in locations across the world.
The nine types of markets are:
The tactics, deployment of resources, and the nature of the people involved are matters that the CEO must examine with the greatest care.
A local market is selling product in your own backyard, state, or country.
Be sure to insure that your company has a common purpose and determination.
Selling product in a neighboring state or country.
Do not restrict yourself to a neighboring market. Press onward to markets
in which true global competition will occur. Be sure to keep your forces
well focused on the overall objective.
A strategic market offers significant strategic value to either you or your competitor.
Be certain that adequate resources are provided to ensure success in entering these markets.
A market which is equally accessible to the competing companies. The
U.S. market is often considered such a market, tariffs in other markets
are typically much more onerous.
In such situations, be careful not to divide up your resources. Make sure
that you can respond to actions taken by your competitors.
A market which provides the entry to several other countries. It may also be a market of great visibility which provides a large public relations benefit to the image of the company.
It is important in such situations to strike and strengthen alliances within these countries.
A market in which a company has established numerous sales offices and is obtaining significant sales in a market dominated by a competitor.
Make sure that you are keeping a steady stream of product coming to these sales offices, and that adequate support is being given to allow them to expand.
A market in which conditions are rapidly changing. It is a market which is difficult to compete within.
Grit your teeth, accept your losses, and press onward.
A market in which the competitors have significant hidden advantages
which can be exploited against your product. Competitors can set great ambushes
for you.
Devise a strategy for responding to your competitors and implement it. Strengthen
your defenses, because this market may evolve into desperate ground.
A market condition in which if no action is quickly taken, all will be lost.
In order to survive, you must fight. Make it clear to the employees of your company the seriousness of your struggle.
It is desirable to cause your competitors to be unable to cooperate both with each other, and within their own companies.
Surprise your competitors and force them to react by taking them unaware.
Speed is the essence of marketing. By taking advantage of your competitors
not being prepared, you will be able to penetrate deeply into a market held
by your competitor, and they will not be able to win back the market share
that you have taken.
Sun Microsystems entering Artificial Intelligence market, took share from
Symbolics. Acted a year before Apollo Computers.
Insure that the company remains well united as it penetrates a market.
The initial products should have sufficient profits as to enable you to
fund your continuing efforts in the market. Do not push your employees to
unnecessarily fatigue them. Make plans for deploying your salesforce which
are unfathomable.
Nothing will divert the attention of a competitor about to threaten you
like attacking something that he values.
A good CEO is able to use the employees that he has to their best advantage. If one has a very strong product line and position in the market, one can use ones weakest employees to support it, while ones best employees are used where they are most required.
When someone performs in an outstanding manner, recognize their achievement immediately and reward them. Don't wait for weeks and months to pass first.
Nothing unites a company like an external threat. You will get the maximum results from your employees when they are in a literal position of do or die.
Those who are skilled at the art of business, make it impossible for a competitor to act in an unified manner. Internal dissensions within a competitor are provoked, so as to discourage management from working in harmony with workers, cause experienced workers to not work well with newly hired workers, to cause different divisions such as field service and manufacturing to be at each others throats.
If you succeed in getting your competitor to go in every which direction, do your best to help this situation along. Stimulate his confusion by deception.
As you enter a market, you should make a profit on your sales in order
that you be able to substain yourself without additional funds. Do not continually
push your workers such that you unnecessarily fatigue them. Otherwise, they
will have no reserves to pull upon when asked for their greatest efforts.
When your company and its workers are fighting for its life, there will
be no need to ask people to work harder. Without asking you will gain the
support, affection, and trust of your employees.
Be flexible in responding to an action by a competitor upon a given portion of your company. Don't respond head on, rather threaten him in a different area.
If your managers are paid exceedingly well, than their motivation for
working becomes driven by only money. If they have no other reason for working
than money, why will they remain with your company when times become difficult?
Golden parachutes are counter-productive to the long term interests of a
company.
Incentives such as stock options, profit sharing, and stock purchase plans,
are not sufficient by themselves to retain employees. Rather you must be
sure to make the proper use of them by putting them in the correct positions.
Put your least capable people on the products which are least vulnerable
to your competitors, and your best people in the areas which are experiencing
the greatest difficulty.
Be calm, collected, and in control. By not demonstrating your emotions,
you will provide less anticipation of your intentions. As much as the rest
of the company may join in celebration of its successes, the plans which
lead to these successes can only be made by its leaders.
In making plans, make sure that they cannot be anticipated by not implementing
them in the same previous manner. Do not reveal your plans. Your competitors
cannot learn from your employees what they do not know.
As much as possible, restrict the flow of information of how you are implementing
your strategies.
If you can't answer the following questions, you are not fit to run a company.
Whatever you do, insure that your competitors don't unite forces together. Your objective should be to cause your competitors to divide their forces. Creating a good public relations image can be very useful in this regard.
When you make a decision, do not be bound by precedent stating that "we've always done it this way in the company". Reward people without regard to previous custom. In this manner you can run a large company as you would manage a single individual.
Ideally, you can defeat your competitors before you even enter the market
by the proper techniques. Getting the capable CEO of a competitor to be
replaced by an incompetent is one such technique.
When your competition presents a opening, moving quickly to exploit it.
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