Crocodile Fight

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the festive bash of a company in Cape Town the other night. The Chief Exec gave a rabble-rousing review of the year. He described how their sales growth had come in the face of much larger multi-nationals, all with huge, better funded salesteams.

Given the African setting, he used the following image to talk about how such achievements could continue into next year.

if you’re fighting with crocodiles, don’t do it in the water

What followed were many of the typical steps you’d expect smaller competitors to deploy. Build relationships, act with speed, keep tight and close to clients.

One further tactic involved the frequency of activity. A supposedly weaker organisation in terms of size can outflank larger competition by not only doing more things, but demonstrably doing them more often.

Whether it be more visits, more updates, more product releases, more maintenance or more communication in general, there’s a raft of measures which can be vigorously pursued with success.