How To Be David And Beat Goliath

Has your “David” small business ever been under attack from a “Goliath” competitor?

If not, surely you’ve heard all the stories and complaints about how “big box” chains like Wal-Mart and others have stormed into a town and basically destroyed dozens of mom-and-pop small businesses.

And how Amazon.com has caused thousands of family-owned bookstores (and some large competitors, too) to close their doors over the past few years.

Here’s how that story normally goes…

1. Goliath-Mart announces a new store opening, coming to your town soon.
2. Small business owners in that town (and even surrounding towns) immediately launch into “protest” and “boycott” mode, trying to convince the area’s inhabitants to support their own local businesses instead of the big, bad chains – just because “that’s the right thing to do – to support your local business owners.”
3. There is an initial show of support for the local small business owners, in the local media, town hall meetings, boycott plans, petitions, etc. from people who promise to be loyal to their local store owners and fight against the big, bad, invading chain store.
4. Goliath-Mart has their Grand Opening. Shoppers start to experience longer hours, better selection, lower prices and better customer service than they ever got from their local business owners. They start giving all of their business to Goliath-Mart.
5. Little by little, the local businesses give up the losing fight and close their doors. Many former business owners even become associates at Goliath-Mart (improving their customer service even more).
6. Fresh from another victorious takeover, Goliath-Mart continues to open up more and more locations all across the country, and this same story plays out over and over again.

Sound familiar?

Want to Goliath-proof your business? Here’s the key…

Don’t wait until the big, bad competitor announces its intention to set up shop in your area. That’s almost always too late.

Instead, there are certain simple, but powerful strategies you can implement right NOW to make sure that no Big Competitor ever attempts to enter your territory – or, if they do, to stop them from stealing your customers, clients or patients.

You can take a free test drive of my SSSMarketingUniversity.com and discover dozens of them for yourself, but for now here’s the very best one of all:

Make sure to bond directly with your customers and other members of your community.

Here’s one example…

My beautiful wife Michele and I recently returned from the 8-day “Marketers Cruise” along with over 400 of the world’s top marketers from 18 countries.

One of the beautiful Caribbean islands we visited was Grand Cayman. The island is best-known for two things: Banking and Tourism.

But there’s one island gem the locals keep all to themselves: a hardware store named after the local Grand Caymanian who founded it over 60 years ago: “A. L. Thompson’s.”

Throughout the one main city of Georgetown, you’ll find lots of chain stores, including Subway, Burger King, KFC, Domino’s and 43 of the 50 largest banks in the world.

But there’s one big box behemoth you may never find there, and that’s because the locals already proudly call A.L. Thompson’s “our Home Depot,” and view it as their own store.

Now that’s how to pre-empt any hostile takeover attempts.

Your humble blogger is also no stranger to a “David-and-Goliath” battle…

Over 9 months ago, a company I had highly-recommended and promoted with a sizable chunk of my own time and money for over four years threatened me that if I didn’t become their corporate employee and practically hand over my entire business to them, they would start to compete with me. A VERY inside source told me the CEO even vindictively vowed to “crush” my business and “take everything he’s got.”

This company pulled out all the Goliath tools to launch its own “monthly workshops” no more than five miles and five days away from my own monthly workshops. They sent all of my current and past members letters, postcards and emails announcing that “there’s now a new, exciting networking, idea-sharing and business-building group right here in your own backyard…”

Hmmm…

To the large majority of “their” list that got this marketing, of course this wasn’t anything “new” at all – they knew I’d been hosting exactly these events in exactly the same area, operating as a Certified Independent Business Advisor since 2008 for the company.

The company pulled out all the stops to entice people to attend their first competing meeting, offering a free book, free $197 product and free lunch for everyone who came to see their all-star lineup of guest speakers.

My phone, email and social media accounts all started to blow up, of course, due to the massive confusion-at-best caused by this all-out assault on my business.

And as if all of that wasn’t underhanded enough, my members started telling me about phone calls they were getting from the company’s sales staff claiming that the company was doing all of this “because Steve’s not running his chapter anymore.”

Hmmm… That was news to me, all of my members and my accountant, who dutifully records the monthly dues payments this company has taken out of my bank account every month for the past 4+ years.

Anyway, long story short…

They’ve continued to run these monthly meetings since then, despite dismal turnouts (while attendance at my events continues to grow) – but I’ve been told that they plan to suspend them after this month.

Until that happens, the David vs. Goliath battle continues. But if what they say is true, then perhaps another little-ol’-David will have held off an all-out-attack from an invading Goliath.

So the bottom-line is…

While of course you hope never to be attacked by a Goliath, that doesn’t mean you should just sit there and wait for it to happen. If you haven’t yet, I strongly suggest that NOW is the time for you to implement strategies and tactics that have been proven to work to help “Davids” hold off attacks from “Goliaths.”

I’ll share plenty of them with you – and help you to implement them into your particular business – during your 30-day trial of SSSMarketingUniversity.com.

And if you’re anywhere near the Chicagoland area, I’ll give you in-person help at my monthly live workshops.

So… What are your thoughts? Has your company ever – in the past, or in the present – been attacked by a “Goliath”?

I’d love to read about it in your comment below.