The mathematics of a marketing melee

Business Articles | October 22, 2005

Sales and Marketing army is more important than quality of people. See how.

When two companies go head to head, the same principle applies. God smiles on the larger sales force.

Given a virgin territory, the company with the larger sales force is likely to wind up with the larger share of the market.

Once the market is divided up, the company with the larger share is likely to continue to take business away from the smaller company.

The bigger company can afford a bigger advertising budget, a bigger research department, more sales outlets, etc. No wonder the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Is there no future for the small competitor? Of course there is which one reason why this book was written is. (General Motors, General Electric, and IBM don’t need to study Clausewitz to be successful.

)But smaller companies with smaller market shares do need to think like field commanders. They must keep in mind the first principle of warfare, the principle of force, be it military or marketing. “The art of war with a numerically inferior army,” said Napoleon “consists in always having larger forces than the enemy at the point which is to be attacked or defended.”

Custer could have become one of our nation’s most famous heroes if he could have gotten the Sioux to attack over the hill one at e time.

Military generals know the importance of the principle of force. That’s why they spend so much time studying the order of battle of an opposing force. For purposes of morale, however, a general tries to fire up his troops by telling them what good soldiers they are and what great equipment they have.“

Now we have the finest food, equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world,” said George C. Scott in his role as General George S. Patton, Jr. “You know, by god, I actually pity those poor bastards we’re going up against.”

Many marketing generals do the same thing and fall victim to their own rhetoric. In particular they talk themselves into the “better people” or the “better product” fallacies.

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