To get outstanding marketing and business results you need this
His name? Sun Tzu – the Chinese military strategist and author of the classic book on strategy, The Art of War. In case you haven’t heard of it The Art of War is a highly influential military, business and performance book. And this is despite the fact that it was written over 1000 years ago.
Now just to give you an idea on how influential Sun Tzu is, The Art of War is part of the literary collection the US army keeps and “during the Persian Gulf war in the 1990s, both General Norman Schwarzkopf. Jr and General Colin Powell practiced Sun Tzu’s principles of deception, speed, and attacking the enemy’s weakness.” (source Wikipedia)
Highly successful sports coaches such as Phil Jackson (LA Lakers coach) and Robbie Deans (Australian rugby coach) are practitioners of Sun Tzu’s strategy principles – as are business leaders including Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle) and Jack Welch (former CEO of General Electric).
Obviously there’s some real golden nuggets in Sun Tzu’s book and if you don’t have it already, you need to go and get your own copy of The Art of War.
The value that people place on writings such as those presented by Sun Tzu should give you an indication as to the importance of strategy and the role of the strategist. Which is why the strategist is the third member of the Golden Trio.
Why is the strategist so important? It’s quite simple really. The strategist helps you to make better decisions and to come up with better ideas. Take a look at the strategic peak performance model below and that should highlight how important decision making is.
How does a strategist make good decisions? Here’s a brief overview of the strategist’s job description. A strategist:
- Gathers data, conducts market intelligence and correlates it
- Analyzes external and internal intelligence and situations
- Identifies competitive weaknesses and gaps
- Establishes powerful strategic positions
- Develops ideas, strategies, tactics and actions to take advantage of competitive situations and positions
- Comes up with counterplays
- Identify attractive target segments
- Position your products, services and business more effectively
- Develop better, more attractive products
- Pinpoint causes of under-performance and failure
- Raise entry barriers to stop or slow down competitiors from copying you.
- Come up with new and better ways of doing things
- Develop a counter attack to a competitor’s product introduction
- Pre-empt a competitive attack on your business
- Develop creative brand initiatives
- Improve sales team performance. And more…
So there you have it. That’s the Golden Trio. To recap, it’s the secret weapon to help you get better marketing and business results and comprises:
- The direct marketing copywriter
- The direct marekting designer/art director
- The strategist
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