Your Real Enemy

Robert Greene’s first strategy of war states, “... you cannot fight effectively unless you can identify your enemy.”

It’s no accident Greene opened his book, The 33 Strategies of War, with this particular strategy. I’ve encountered hundreds of businesses that confused their competitors with their enemies.

I have fallen into this trap plenty of times over the years, so no judgment.

Here are some no-bullshit questions you can ask yourself to strengthen your company’s ability to fight on this unconventional B2B battlefield.

⚔️ Selling fleet management software?

⚔️ Is your enemy the top 3 fleet management platforms or 3PL mega-platforms??

⚔️ Or is your true enemy Denise in the front office who will make it her life’s mission to bury your pitch and ensure COO Denis, with one N, stops questioning her old-school fleet management skills??

⚔️ Slinging plumbing fixtures?

⚔️ Is your enemy Ferguson or Kohler??

⚔️ Or is your true enemy private equity firms violently merging every mechanical contractor outfit on the left coast, and bringing their overpriced good old boys' supplier with them???

In true ‘practice what we preach’ form, the Bandits went through this exercise. And true to Greene’s assertion, identifying our true enemy has filled us “with purpose and direction.”

The B2B Bandits’ True Enemies

• Do-it-yourself’ers … the ease of use of sales/marketing tech across the board has made our typical ‘gateway drug’ of tech help less useful. We are sidestepping this enemy by making one-on-one - no topic off-limits - training a core offering.
  

• Fake (and Real) Gurus … digital and offline channels are choked with experts. Defeating an expert with expertise has not been problematic for the Bandits. But punching through the noise? Oof! We are going toe-to-toe with this enemy by ungating all of our content from the past 16-years. Too early too tell if this application of Greene’s strategy will work. 🤞
  

• Mercenary SDR’s … if given a choice been a great marketing team, or a hired gun sales development rep (SDR), a smart company will choose the mercenary every time. Over the past year, we have diverted the majority of our spend and recruiting energies on strengthening our sales ‘gun for hire’ capabilities.

Once you’ve identified your real enemy, it becomes possible to destroy - or at least sidestep - them.

Smash that reply button with your thoughts or rebuttals.

- The B2B Bandits -