The Entrepreneur's Guide to the Art of War

The Original Classic Text Interpreted for the Modern Business World

Mark Smith

• Publisher: Arcturus
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781838573911
• eBook ISBN:
  9781398809840
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

"Essential reading for the business leaders of tomorrow and a fascinating study of the boardroom as the new battlefield" - Booklist

THE CLASSIC MILITARY TEXT, NOW ANALYSED FOR THE BUSINESS-MINDED.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu has been a much-studied work of military strategy for hundreds of years, influencing great leaders in all walks of life. Here, business journalist Mark Smith applies the lessons to the role of the entrepreneur by showing how the axioms of General Sun Tzu apply to creating and expanding a business in a successful and meaningful way.

Illustrated with numerous case studies of business owners whose strategies show how these ideas can work and containing quotes and tips from well-known business leaders and innovators, The Entrepreneur's Guide to The Art of War will show you how to:

• lay firm foundations for your intended business
• choose your staff and co-workers effectively
• study your competitors in order to be stronger and better at what you do
• maintain a good working environment and happy employees
• work out your business's path to continued success

With helpful diagrams and illustrations, business leaders in the making will find this an invaluable companion.

CHAPTER 1

LAYING PLANS

The opening chapter to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War concerned the importance of making preparations before engaging in military action. Indeed, this was arguably Sun Tzu’s most important lesson – the idea that victory could effectively be secured during this phase of a campaign, before armies had even taken to the field.

The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose – Sun Tzu

PLANNING FOR SUCCESS

Laying plans is just as important for victory in business as it is in a military campaign. Whether it is having a clear vision and offering, written business plans, policies and procedures, social media and marketing strategies or having a unique selling point, the battle can be won or lost before the first product or service is ever taken to market.

When addressing the importance of planning, Sun Tzu spoke of what he called his five constant factors. Those who knew and embraced these five factors would be victorious and those who did not, would fail. The factors were:

■ the moral law;

■ Heaven;

■ Earth;

■ the commander;

■ method and discipline.

THE FIVE FACTORS FOR BUSINESS

So let us break down what these five factors mean and how they apply to business. The moral law is the willingness of people to follow their ruler. In a business context, this is the propensity of staff and employees to be fully onboard with the company’s culture and goals.

What Sun Tzu termed ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’ are broadly related to the prevailing elemental and physical conditions of the battlefield. For Heaven, this was the seasons, night and day, cold and heat. Earth meant distances, open ground and narrow passes.

In business, this is broadly analogous to knowing the market. Is the market buoyant or depressed and is it seasonal in nature? What is the spending power of your typical customer or client? Is it a competitive market? Is it an old or new market and what is your competition like?

THE ENTREPRENEUR AS A LEADER

In this section, Sun Tzu also introduced the concept of the commander, something he would return to time and again in his text. In business, the commander is you. You are the entrepreneur, the person who takes the decisions, the owner, the leader, the dreamer and inspirer.

Sun Tzu said a good commander should be wise, sincere, benevolent and strict and have courage. They should also inspire trust. For someone to succeed in business it is important that they too inspire trust, not just in those that work with and for them – but in those they would do business with and sell to as well.

Most new businesses flow from the experiences of the founders. They see something, think it can be done better, and then have the guts to go off and do it – Jeremy Stern

One thing many entrepreneurs have in abundance is drive and self-belief. After all, they probably would not have taken on the challenge of starting a business in the first place if they did not have that burning inner fire.

That was certainly the case for Jeremy Stern. He had spent 20 years in the marketing industry, working with global powerhouses such as Unilever, and serving as head of European promotion for Coca-Cola and then European marketing director for the Japanese video game giant Sega. For Jeremy, it was while he was working for other companies and observing how things were done that the seeds of entrepreneurship were sown.

‘I had seen that whilst there was huge senior focus on advertising with things like promotions, prize draws and competitions, they were left to the most junior person to organize. They had no idea of the rules, the risks and the need for compliance, and things frequently went wrong.’

It was at this point that he decided to shift the paradigm, so that the person at the top would be the one to take care of these types of requirements, providing hands-on and senior leadership where the clients and customers needed to see it most.

Small beginnings

In 2002, he set up shop in his back room, but from these humble beginnings things soon took off. His company PrimoVeritas now has 40 staff, in-house legal and web development teams, operates in more than 80 countries, runs over 1,500 projects a year and has long-term clients such as Pepsi, Walkers, ASOS, Amex and Kellogg’s.

It is now the UK’s leading promotional compliance specialists, which means it ensures that the prize draws, competitions and instant-win promotions operated by major food, drink, finance and other brands are run fairly, legally and securely.

The day-to-day aspect means the company drafts the terms and conditions for the offers we see in supermarkets, and also picks winners of prize draws and judges entries to competitions. Jeremy says: ‘I decided there had to be a better someone who could take care of all of the details, make sure there were terms and conditions that the winners were picked fairly, that they were handled correctly and everything was legal, in the UK, in Europe, or beyond.’

THE IMPORTANCE OF YOU

Everything will eventually stem from the person at the top, so the most important thing is to find out what is unique about you as the entrepreneur.

What unique skills, insights, abilities or points of view do you bring to the table? What have you learned on your career journey that enables you to offer something different and do it better?

Being a capable and trustworthy leader will help you establish Sun Tzu’s ‘moral law’, which will make staff, investors and external collaborators want to follow you and embrace your vision.

FIND YOUR NICHE

Sun Tzu talked of Heaven and Earth, the conditions in which the commander had to conduct his plans. In a business context, that represents the economy and markets, the business world through which you must navigate. This is something we will touch on in Chapters 4 and 7.

But in terms of entering a market, Stern’s advice is that it is essential for the leader to set down their clear focus for what the company will do and how it will operate.

‘Create a niche and stay in it. There are more than 10,000 creative marketing agencies in the UK. There are just two companies that do what we do.’

Although it might be tempting to diversify and go where you see bigger opportunities, the reality is that you will be competing with many more rivals, who may be better than you in areas outside of your core.

HONE YOUR EXPERTISE

Having a niche is something that many entrepreneurs are not sure about, as they instinctively feel they will be leaving money on the table from all the work that might pass them by.

But as well as helping to establish you as a business with fewer competitors, it has the considerable added bonus of ensuring you are immersed in a subject and a sector, providing you with invaluable specialist expertise that is evolving all the time – expertise which will command a value, possibly a high value.

Jeremy said that sticking to this core offering and becoming experts in a field means business will eventually flow to you. Once they are customers, this opens the door to diversifying an offering to that specific client which can lead to even more business. This is something PromoVeritas did successfully.

‘When you get that business, then it is possible to “add on” extra bits. In our case, prize buying, prize fulfilment, web building, but it is a bolt-on for the service that makes us special – legal work on promotions and fair winner selection.’

SETTING THE RULES

Finally, in Sun Tzu’s list of the five factors, method and discipline are all about organization:

■ How is your business structured?

■ Who does what?

■ How efficiently does it interact with the market, suppliers and customers?

■ How disciplined is the company with expenditure?

Establishing and nurturing relationships with suppliers and routes to market is every bit as important for a business as it is for an army to maintain its supply lines on the battlefield.

The methods for opening these routes, such as negotiating with potential suppliers, right down to attending trade fares and breakfast me...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Laying Plans
• Chapter 2 Waging War
• Chapter 3 Attack by Stratagem
• Chapter 4 Tactical Dispositions
• Chapter 5 Energy
• Chapter 6 Weak Points and Strong
• Chapter 7 Manoeuvring
• Chapter 8 Variations in Tactics
• Chapter 9 The Army on the March
• Chapter 10 Terrain
• Chapter 11 The Nine Situations
• Chapter 12 Attack by Fire
• Chapter 13 The Use of Spies
• Copyright