Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat

Sun Tzu

5 WAYS CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERS WIN MARKET SHARE

1. A Corporate Entrepreneur (CE) knows when to enter, stay in or get out of a product or market.  This is easier said than done due to egos, emotions, lack of being able to see what others see, and being blind and deaf to the corporate wisdom that is right in from of them.  Having a corrected consciousness will help, however, it must be integrated with the correct culture (Mutual Benefit) and sit on a strong framework (S.M.A.R.T.).
2. A CE that understands the linkages between sales, marketing, adverting, product development, operations, and finance will succeed in winning market share.  If you focus on one more than the other, it will create a weakness in your company and your approach.  CE’s know that interconnectedness of today’s complex organizations play a crucial part in their individual success.  They embrace the concept of mutual guarantee.
3. A CE knows and acknowledges that all employees must be on board with the company’s goals and objectives.  These leaders know both intrinsic and extrinsic benefits must be achievable by all employees, or they will suffer from “sub-optimized behavior,” and “fingerpointerosis.” The understanding of motivation is what allows for a baseline of discipline that will allow for innovation and process improvements that will offer an organization the opportunity to win market share.
4. A CE leader that embraces training, documenting procedures, collecting, storing, utilizing data, and the planning that ties it all together, is in a good position to take market share.  The CE leader’s consciousness is one of investing in all these areas in both time and budget.  Many times, the budget is easier to embrace than the time resource.  Too often, management wants their success quick, fast, and with staying power.   This mindset creates re-work, dissention, and short-term market share gain, but will make it impossible to keep this market share in the long-term.
5. CE leaders are wakeful to the fact that it is the line management and supervisors that allow a company to take and keep market share.  No matter what your leadership style or organizational structure, it is the employees that do the work, live within the processes, interface with your employees, and keep your building clean and your infrastructure working that allows your company to take market share.

YOU CAN’T CAUSE YOUR COMPETITION TO LEAVE THEMSELVES OPEN

This will be hard for all those brilliant, hard-driving, self-proclaimed superheroes of corporations to acknowledge, however, it is “corporate entrepreneurial realism.”

You can use any number of strategies, techniques and tactics that will cause your competitors to make a mistake, however, it is up to your competitors to leave themselves open or to take the proper action that will make your efforts non-effective.  So, all those brilliant, hard-driving, self-proclaimed super-heroes are only partially responsible for their success against competitors… THE COMPETITOR THEMSELVES MAKE UP THE CRITICAL FACTOR OF THE EQUATION!

Corporate Entrepreneurs are conscious (wakeful) to the notion that they must attack competitors that leave themselves open or are likely to leave themselves open for attack.  They will be looking for chinks in a competitor’s armor that signal they are ripe for attack.  CE’s will be open to input from all levels of their company, which they will use to help identify these potential competitive targets.  The following

1. Slacked off of customer service
2. Reduced the quality of product or services… “it’s not what it used to be!”
3. Not capitalized on their critical successes
4. A salesforce that has become complacent
5. They are transitioning to AI, robotics, or other technology and are not yet in position to take advantage of it
6. People leaving
7. Just made a change in management

WHEN ENTERING A NEW MARKET…DON’T CHANGE JUST FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE

Don’t change what you have always done just because you are entering a new market.  If the situation warrants a change, then change.  Don’t just change for the sake of change.  Too many young inexperienced managers want to change everything because they think that you need to change to stay relevant and/or ahead of the pack.

When you enter a new market, identify how and if what made you successful in other markets, will also work in your new market.  You will most likely want to alter your tactics and techniques to accommodate variables in the new market environment, however, these may only be small modifications of your current processes.

When entering a new market and decide you need large scale change, you should make sure you have the training, personnel, and desire to change the way you are currently doing business.  CE’s will look at the interconnectedness of their organization and work with other departments to understand how the change will affect them.  CE’s will be wakeful to the new timelines and requirements that any change in process and/or expectations will bring to the employees.  CE’s will understand that compensation may have to change and how that will affect current product and service offerings.

CE’s will use corporate wisdom, research databases, company information, web-based databases (i.e., LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) and a variety of other sources to turn their existing corporate wisdom into practical knowledge they can utilize to enter a new market.

When entering a new market, having a mutual benefit consciousness that is based on the S.M.A.R.T. framework is the way CE’s guarantee success.