Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry by Stephen Denny

Author:Stephen Denny [Denny, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2011-03-30T14:00:00+00:00

VICTOR BAZAN’S STORY OF the St. Martinville prison siege is a vivid example of the FBI switching the emotional polarity—from rational to emotional or emotional to rational—to defuse and ultimately resolve a hostage situation. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to a corporate purchasing officer who doesn’t want to work too hard evaluating his options, or a psychopath demanding a helicopter to Libya, it’s going to come down to your ability to move them off of their established anchor point and throw the psychological switch in their brains that allows your argument to be heard.

Under these conditions of emotional polarity, let’s consider the role of price. In general terms, a reasonable person would agree that cheaper isn’t always better. We simply have to make more sense. Understand that when you’re fighting a giant, you’re often at a disadvantage: They have more brand awareness, deeper pockets, perhaps a bigger sales organization, and other natural advantages. So our approach really can’t be incremental, because we’ll get out-incremental-ed. We need to lay down a pricing strategy that isn’t easy to flip over and deconstruct. We need something sticky, something only we can do.

This is a tall order. But by reversing the emotional polarity, we shift the competition into a new frame, one different from their current set of assumptions and preconceptions. We must shift the rational player to an emotional footing and push an emotional player to think more rationally. If your customer knows that they’ll never get in trouble buying the giant’s product—“Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”—it’s our job to push them out of their comfort zone, making them think emotionally and sweeping them up in the momentum of our offer. And when they’re caught up in the emotional close of a giant’s sweeping sales pitch, it’s our job to put the math in front of their eyes, slowing them down and making them understand the rational choice.

Changing the emotional polarity of a situation is a powerful strategy when you’re fighting a bigger competitor, because it puts the fight on ground of your choosing.

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