"Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable."
There's a secret in keeping what you're going to do next close to you. Have any idea what it is?
It's not the obvious idea of not letting your competitors know what you're doing; although that's obviously part of it. It's what has them thinking in the first place that is more important than anything else.
All of us watch what our competitors are doing as we keep a watch on the overall market we serve to see if things are trending in a different way that we need to respond to, or if something is becoming popular that we need to add to our product line. That's a given in doing business.
But when you talk about keeping people guessing, you've become the standard they're measuring by. Wal-Mart is that way. Almost everything in retail not related to the luxory market is measured against Wal-Mart (WMT).
What does this do? It makes competitors respond to us. They look at us to see what their move is. It can move them off their purpose as they look to see what direction the market is going in. You're not just a bellwhether for the overall market, you're the bellwhether of your market.
When you're not too predictable, it keeps people from leaching from your expertise. Competitors can and do use the marketing departments of their competitors to make decisions. In other words, if you're executing something new, your marketing department or workers have brought the idea to you. The fact that the idea can be copied shows how your company can be exploited for its expertise.
This is one of the reasons why it's so important to not be too predictable, especially in our age of instant communication. Once we initiate something, it'll be communicated in a very short time to our competitors. It's more important to be the initiator and have our competitors responding to us, than it is to always be looking at our competitors and being in the position of responding to them.
While we always need to know what our competitors are doing, we need to work toward being the one they wonder what we'll be doing next. Do that and you'll be able to guide the market where you want it to go, while they're always following in your footsteps.
Other Walton Sources:
The Most Underrated CEO Ever The legendary Sam Walton
Sam Walton: The Power of Persistence
Sam Walton Business Quotes for Ya
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