Marketing, Like Warfare, Comes In These Three Forms
By Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan
Have you ever heard about The Power Show, annually organised in Siberia?
It's a rather oddball show. A game really.
People slap each other in the face for a prize.
The game is very simple.
Two men stand face to face and at the signal of the referee, taking turns one slap at a time, they start slapping each other in the face alternating roles with every slap.
At the referee's signal, player A slaps player B in the face once.
Then player B slaps player A.
The slaps are full force with no holds barred.
Some players are so strong that they knock their opponents out with once single slap.
The game has started in Siberia, but several European countries have also joined not only in sending contestants but hosting the event.
What does it remind you of?
As for me, it reminds me of competitive bidding.
Both buyers and sellers use powerful tricks try to puff themselves up to present themselves in the best light and intimidate each other into submission.
This is a typical approach especially for buyers representing insignificant, Mickey Mouse firms and sellers with incorrectly positioned businesses.
As a copywriter, I sometimes get contacted by buyers' intermediaries, hardly ever real buyers, being interested in hiring me, but the condition to meet real buyers is to perform a test task... for free of course.
Interestingly, a few weeks ago a successful ($530,000 ARPE - annual revenue per employee) IT consulting firm hired me based on some podcast guest appearances and about 15 minutes on the phone with the CEO, CIO and COO. No test task, no muss, no fuss.
Interesting.
So Back To The Bidding War
Which is the most brutal form of warfare.
In the movie Patriot, Benjamin Martin, played by Mel Gibson, warns his comrades that they can't fight against the British army muzzle-to-muzzle and hope to win.
Bidding wars are the same. Even if you win and get the project, it's likely to be over-scoped and under-priced.
So, at the end of the day, it's a huge loss. Especially if you consider that now your calendar is booked, so even if an ideal client comes along, you can't accept his - properly scoped and priced - project.
This is the reason why airlines are more willing to fly planes with lots of empty first-class seats than discounting them for coach passengers.
So, considering all this...
How Do You Get Your Clients?
But first let's take a little detour and set the context for marketing by looking at the three types of military warfare...
1. Attrition Warfare
Opposing armies line up at a distance face-to-face and at the command of their officers, they start shooting at each other. But some armies were smart and went against the traditional "Shoot on my command" approach.
They approached warfare with a "shoot at will" mentality and usually defeated "Shoot on my command" type armies.
This difference was a major contributor to American militias'' success against the British army, and then America's independence.
2. Manoeuvre Warfare
Opposing armies line up, but their movements and actions are pre-planned (strategy) and based on sequences of manoeuvres. Those manoeuvres have six main ingredients...
- Tempo often based on OODA (observe => orient => decide => act) loop developed by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd.
- Focal point is the centre of effort where the enemy should be struck at the right time and with an overwhelming force. The ideal focal point is both strategically vital and weakly defended. Basically, the enemy fails to recognise the focal point's importance and neglects it in defence.
- Surprise: Based on deception which is based on good intel.
- Combined arms mean the integration of several armed units.
- Flexibility must be a key attribute of a military, making it well-rounded, self-contained and redundant.
- Decentralized command makes it possible to respond to rapid changes. Soldiers at lower levels must understand their commanders' intents.
3. Special Operations Warfare
Special operations warfare is like music. It's simple on the surface, after all, you only have 12 notes to play with. But when you consider all the moving parts in the equation, you realise how complex it is.
It may look simple because in comparison to attrition warfare and manoeuvre warfare, you need only a few people. Yes, you need only a few, but those few people have gone through 5+ years of pretty intense and diverse training.
According to one of my skydiving buddies, a 14-year veteran Navy SEAL, it takes 4-5 years when a SEAL can first say, "I'm ready for what I've signed up for." As he says, in their first 4-5 years, there are only apprentice SEALs.
By contrast, attrition manoeuvre warfare soldiers have completed a boot camp and they are ready for the kind of warfare they are used for.
The six main ingredients are the same as in manoeuvre warfare, but everything is more intense and precise.
The Same Three Types Of Warfare Play Out In Marketing As Well
You can have...
- Attrition marketing
- Manoeuvre marketing
- Special operations marketing
1. Attrition Marketing
Attrition marketing is when you throw a hodgepodge of tactics at the wall and hope some of them stick and bring in new business.
There is no overall strategy, only a bag of, usually 'flavours of the month, tricks, techniques and tactics. "Last month, we did Facebook advertising. This month let's do Google advertising. Next month, who knows?"
It includes random (non-facilitated) word of mouth referrals (hopium), cold calling, haphazard non-targeted publishing in diverse publications and on unrelated web platforms (and calling it content marketing). It applies to "We do anything for anyone for money" type 100% generic firms.
This is the equivalent of having a mining business that mines anything and everything.
2. Manoeuvre Marketing
Manoeuvre marketing is somewhat narrowed down either vertically (industry) or horizontally (discipline), and there is a marketing strategy. It's usually a loose strategy, but at least something.
Manoeuvre marketing is really directional attrition marketing. The approach is attrition marketing, but there is a definite target market and specific offer. For instance, SEO or an email blast campaign is mass marketing, but since SEO is based on keywords and the email blast consists of a specific offer to a specific market, it becomes directed. A specific offer is directed to a specific target market.
This is the equivalent of mining for gold, but being willing to adjust operations for silver and copper.
3. Special Operations Marketing
Special operations marketing is when business development professional pick specific companies that they want as clients and mount highly personalised campaigns to acquire them.
In modern day parlance, this is called account-based marketing, and is presented as a new concept, but it's not. David Ogilvy used it in the 1950'. But at that time, it didn't have a fancy name.
Anyhoo...
The idea is that "spec ops" type marketers don't wait for those companies to come to them off their own bats.
They manipulate the circumstances such that those companies initiate contact with those sellers.
Now, please note that I use the word "manipulation", but pay attention to the context.
You don't manipulate the client but the business climate in which your target market operates.
The manipulation can be in the form of quality content in a trade publication or a speech/presentation at your target market's trade association.
The best form of manipulation is spreading your credibility.
This is the equivalent of mining for gold and gold only, and rejecting silver, copper and any other metal.
In terms of gross revenue, attrition and manoeuvre marketing usually performs the highest. See General Motors or Walmart
But in terms of net profit per employee, special operations marketing performs the best. See Ferrari or Koenigsegg.
Or just look at Toyota and Lexus.
Toyota does attrition marketing, while Lexus does manoeuvre marketing.
And the result is that Lexus represents 3% of Toyota's gross revenue, but some 64% of its net profits.
Let's keep this in mind.
And now let's look at...
How All This Can Position Your IT Service Firm
In your buyers' perception, your firm is either a fungible vendor (bottom left quadrant) or a respected industrial authority (top right quadrant).
If you want to become a true "high-margin, low volume" firm, then you have to be a business strategist in the top right quadrant. In that position you're vertically positioned, specialising in a specific industry, and you have a very good understanding of that industry's business model (how it makes money).
This knowledge allows you to present your solutions in the C-suite or boardroom to CXOs and senior executives in context of their most expensive business problems and biggest business goals, NOT technical goals.
If you are a technical strategist or business tactician, you have to work damn hard to move to the top right quadrant, but it's doable.
But it you're in the bottom left quadrant as a technical tactician, performing break-fix services, then it's almost impossible to get to the top right.
Yes, the bad news is that it takes hard work to get to the top right quadrant.
The worst news is that everything starts with a mindset change, and in many cases, mindsets are very hard to change.
Whenever I speak at some events and present the idea that a field sales force can be replaced with good sales copy and the last 5-10% of the sales process can be done by subject matter experts, some firm leaders object that subject matter experts don't know how to sell.
Then I tell them they don't need to know how to sell. The sales copy has already done the selling. The last few percent of the sales process consists of diagnosis and engagement scoping. And that's what subject matter experts know and enjoy doing.
Conclusion
So, which method to choose?
Good question.
I've read somewhere that a modern army infantry expends some 15,000 rounds of ammunition to kill one enemy soldier.
Snipers take 1.2 rounds for every kill. That is, 100 out of 120 shots kill their targets.
That's a rather impressive 12,500-fold improvement.
And it's not by doing more of the same. It's doing less of something completely different.
That can also be the difference between attrition type marketing and special operations type marketing.
Yes, attrition marketing, which is heavily execution-based (make more cold calls, respond to more RFPs or hire more salespeople) without an overarching strategy, is easy to implement. But even if it leads to victory, it is a pyrrhic victory.
Yes, you can land some new clients, but the projects you get are likely to be over-scoped and under-priced and the quality of clients is pretty low. There is almost no chance for referrals and repeat business.
So, how picky are you willing to be with your client acquisition?
How vigorously are you willing to screen buyers?
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I'm sure there are many more forms of marketing non-sense, but right now, these babies have got my goat. Let's call the potato soup potato soup. Yes, we can call it traditional vegan vichyssoise soup, but let's get real for a moment.
All the above mentioned five methods work very well with their original names, and a new name won't make them more effective.
Look, some people call cold calls warm introductions, but the new name doesn't make cold calls more effective. So, we might as well stick with the original names.
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It's all well and good, but to apply it all, you need to know how your target market perceives your firm.
Is it a fungible IT vendor or a respected IT authority?
It's the market that hangs your brand around your neck based on the outside perception of your firm.
But you can also influence the outside perception by tweaking your firm's inside reality, that is, your culture, by consciously transforming your firm from vendor to authority.
In this peddler quiz, you can check whether your firm is more of a fungible IT vendor or a respected IT authority.
In the meantime, don't sell harder. Market smarter and your business will be better off for it.