In another, lesser known that, the
Wise General once said, “If winners get to write history, first win, then
write.” So when business calls, I must respond. Unfortunately, the demands of
work have made it hard to post daily. The weekend has brought time to catch-up
and plow ahead with the completion of Sun Tzu’s chapter on Battle and our
commentator’s exegesis on business development.
Comments on Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War, edited by Dick Cooledge, Comptche Press, 1927.
Sun Tzu: “Prolonged warfare benefits the defense, as armies tire, their
families want them home and the country is impoverished. If you have not
experienced the evils of war then it is difficult to understand how to win.”
Raven: “When you know what they
fear and what they hope for, sometimes you can be the answer. If I want to be
the answer, I start by listening to their questions.”
Poor Richard: “If you want to do business with someone, do the first deal.
If the first deal is a good deal, others can follow. So you have to figure if
there is a good deal or you will waste a lot of time. First you get clear on
how they figure fair market. Since fair market value is what it is worth, all
that remains to figure out is the payment schedule. In a good deal, there is an
alignment of payouts with milestones and money to pay them. When your deals
have payoffs that are win/win and payment schedules that are cash flow
acceptable, people want to do deals with you. That's what they call
goodwill, by the way. People want to buy
things from merchants with a reputation for goodwill and avoid merchants with a
reputation that is contrary and bad will.”
© Phyl Speser, January 23, 2013
Comments on Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War, edited by Dick Cooledge, Comptche Press, 1927.
Sun Tzu: “Bring food for your men and your animals. But do it only once.
Once established in the field, an army must feed itself off the land. When I
see a line of wagons heading each way to and from the front, I worry. For the
state is being impoverished and my men are no longer warriors but wagon
masters.”
Raven: “Do you see that field with
scarecrow? The farmer builds defenses
so he can eat better than me. If I know that
is what they are, I can ignore them or use them to my advantage. Either way,
there is food to eat.”
Poor Richard: “Repeat customers are the best customers. When the prosperous
merchant sells a stove to a customer, she also sells delivery and installation
if she can – even if she has to sell them at cost. That way, when the job is
done, she can have time to visit over a cup of tea, talk, and listen. What she
knows is good service is the key to developing her business. Business development
is just listening to the customer and developing a relationship. For the
prosperous merchant, that relationship is cemented with positive cash flow. She
never loses sight of that, which is why she is a prosperous merchant.”
© Phyl Speser, January 24, 2013
Comments on Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War, edited by Dick Cooledge, Comptche Press, 1927.
Sun Tzu: “Bring what you need to fight from home, forage for the rest. The
army will have food, they will have weapons, and the country is not
impoverished. Maintaining an army a great distance away is expensive. On the
other hand, base your army too near and the same vendors will sell to it again
and again and the prices start to go up as now there are many mouths to feed.
What does this mean for the people? The country is being impoverished and they
know this because the price of food is suddenly higher. Do you want a formula?
It is not needed. Whatever the army needs becomes scarcer and what is scare but
desired is costly. Hence the wise general lives off the land. A cartload of
food foraged is like hauling 20 cartloads from home.”
Raven: “Once you’re done gathering,
you can’t live off the land if there is no-one willing to raise crops.”
Poor Richard: “In any market, if you want to do a deal, you really only have
two choices when it comes: take it or leave it. If you leave it, you may be
able to take it later if it’s not too late, but the odds are it will cost you
more if you do. Therefore, the profitable merchant makes great deals when she
has something she can sell for a great deal of money, good deals when she has
something she can sell for good money, and any deal when she will lose more
money otherwise.”
© Phyl Speser, January 27, 2013
Comments on Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War, edited by Dick Cooledge, Comptche Press, 1927.
Sun Tzu: “What wins battles is bloodlust. What captures prizes is reward.
Those who capture ten chariots should get one. Those that capture prisoners
should be honored with precious metals. Those that treat prisoners kindly and
keep them well can even recruit from among the vanquished.”
Raven: “There is the story and then
there is the follow-up to the story. It is in the follow-up where you find out
if everyone in the story will live happily ever after.”
Poor Richard: “If my prospects will not buy anything from me today that does
not mean they will never buy. A return customer is always the best prospect but
a person treated well who stops by the shop again is the next best thing if you
are looking for sales. You just want to remind them periodically you are a
merchant and your job is to sell things.”
© Phyl Speser, January 28, 2013
Comments on Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War, edited by Dick Cooledge, Comptche Press, 1927.
Sun Tzu: “The important thing is victory, not persistence. Where the
generals understand they are responsible for the lives of the peoples’ children
and the fortunes of the people’s families, they never forgot this.”
Raven: “There is a reason the early
bird catches the worm. It has not been eaten by someone else already.”
Poor Richard: “For the profitable merchant, the goal of business development
is sales and the metrics are time to revenue and the amount of profit. When the
time shrinks and the profit grows, there is
much satisfaction. When the time grows and the profit shrinks, there is much
introspection.”
© Phyl Speser, January 29, 2013