The Ladder, Your Horse & Where You Stand.

Here’s the third installation (of seven) of Ries and Trout’s - The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! This time, it’s Immutable Laws 7, 8 and 9. Number Seven is - The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder. Before I get into it, remember, in business as in life, the higher you are on the ladder, the more the fall will hurt or worse. Do you know what rung of the competitive ladder you occupy? Look down. What do you see? Look up. What do you see? Is anybody sharing that rung?

One of the worse marketing strategies is to “be just like” whatever company you’re competing with. Why would you want to do that? Monkey see – monkey do. Tit for tat. It’s not a strategy, it’s a mistake. If you’re on top; your biggest competitor is yourself. How you strategize to continually better yourself and what you do is the way to go. Keep an eye on the other guy but mind your own business. Your best strategy is commitment, consistency and trust building. That strategy will reward you with loyalty, repeat sales and a solid reputation.

Contests always determine a winner and the losers. There are all kinds of contests. The worst of them is the spitting contest. It’s a silly exercise in one-upmanship. The winner wins because they have more time, money and resources than the winner. Pricing wars are a classic example of this. Number Eight is - In the long run, every market becomes a two horse race. In a two-horse race, it’s all about endurance, strength and speed. Even if the law says the race is inevitable, avoid it. In a weight lifting contest the strongest lifter wins even if it’s by a few ounces or pounds. With so little contrast between the contestants, how’s the customer to know who’s superior?

You want to be the best? Find out what it is that you do that no one else can or will or, how your customers perceive you. You may be trying too hard. Yes, there’s the Democrats and the Republicans. Yes, there are countless examples of a two choice, paper or plastic, either or choices. When it comes down to a - this or that - situation, it hurts the customer because they don’t have many options and as such, both contestants end up losing customers.

As for Number Nine - If you are shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader. So, what determines the market leader in your business environment? Size? Scope? Services? Longevity? Number two is a great position to be in because the customers are forced to chose either or, which is totally the opposite of I said in the previous paragraph. But you see, in this case, you chose to shoot for second place. Avis used their second place ranking to their advantage in the rental car market. They knew that racing Hertz was futile so they embraced their status and declared – We try harder! Whether you’re number one or number fifty-seven is based on the annual industry ranking criteria of sales, number of employees and such data. What really counts is whether or not your customers, (in their minds) think you’re the best or among the best.

In the end, regardless of where you’re perched on the ladder or how good your horse (or, jockey) is or, where you stand at this very moment in the annual industry “standings”, it’s the customer that got you there and it’s the customer that can bump you up or bring you down. My father once said, “Never mess with somebody stupider than you.” As with most things he said, it took awhile to sink in. Winning isn’t about what you have to gain. It’s more about what you risk losing.

In most ladder, horse race and first versus second place scenarios, the key point is value. And, most business people ignore value, or what the customer values, in favor of price. No one wins a price war. If you get customers hooked on price, price is all you’ve got. But, in nearly every industry survey, price come in fourth place or lower on the ladder of what customers want and need. Customers don’t care about size. Size only matters if it represents the power to offer a wider selection and to deliver service better and faster than anyone. So, you see, where you stand is where you want to be.

Ask the Red Queen. Even though she’s a character in Lewis Carroll's - Through the Looking-Glass, what she said, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place," does make sense. The quote is also referenced as the Red Queen Hypothesis, which refers evolutionary systems where continuing adaptation is needed in order for a species to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with. Evolve, adapt and everything takes care of itself