What We Can Learn From The Art Of War

The Art of War is unquestionably a timeless, highly motivational, and overwhelmingly informative text on military affairs. Yep … military affairs. So I suppose you’re wondering what the heck I’m doing writing about something designed to assist generals and warriors wage war against their enemies. The truth in the matter is, that as a webmaster or internet marketer – we too can be associated with being a commander in a war fought on multiple fronts. The war against our competitors often stretches through multiple borders into the depths of the online world and can often be brutal. From Google rankings, to market reputation, to product superiority/differentiation we are continuously and often unknowingly at war.

Getting straight into it, the real question is how can this book be applied to our online endevaours? I’m going to pick it apart, and attempt to translate its military meaning into something we can relate to and effectively employ. Here we go..

1. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

This is one of my personal favorite quotes from the book, and has been something I’ve continuously implemented into various online ventures. This also reinforces the concept of urgency I think many people neglect to use when trying to make money. Without drifting off point, I think the worst mistake you can make is not applying urgency to your work.  My interpretation is that basically when launching a project, it is often better to keep the launch a secret, rather than creating a sense of anticipation. Why? Because your competitors can feed off this anticipation, and consequently engage in a marketing campaign so as to shift the attention off your project come launch time. I’ve had success with practically appearing out of no where, and carrying out an extensive and heavy marketing campaign. By the time my competitors have been able to react, I would have already established myself in the industry which therefore make their efforts are much easier to offset.

2. Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand.

This is a very straight forward quote, however I want to create an emphasis on conducting market research before you launch a product. It’s absolutely paramount to understand what exactly your competitors are doing, and identifying trends in their business model. This information will therefore help you anticipate how they will react. Sometimes using the Way Back Machine can prove extremely beneficial. I think it’s also worthwhile to note that doing anything to make money online constitutes operating a business, at least on some level. It should therefore be treated as a physical business would, with an extensive level of research and planning being applied.

3. Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards.

The literal interpretation is a little bit savage, however when you apply this to what we’re doing, it actually makes quite a bit of sense. Once again, this is something that I’ve implemented in the past – especially when running a web hosting company a few years back. Basically ‘killing the enemy’ represents a universal objective (for example attaining a certain market share, or generating a specific profit) that your entire team should be working towards. Your team should therefore be motivated to achieve this objective through some sort of reward; whether it be monetary or personal or whatever. For the record, I’m talking about a reward in addition to a regular base wage.  Correctly motivating employees, or even contractors, is something no webmaster or internet marketer should ever overlook.

4. You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.

This in my opinion is a critical mistake a lot of webmasters and internet marketers seem to continuously make. That is of course – targeting extremely saturated markets without adopting any real type of niche, which therefore leaves them exposed to a flood of competitors – mainly of which are typically equipped with monsterous market share and budgets. As such, the advice of the wise Sun Tzu is therefore with merit. Attacking undefended positions, or niches, is an easier way to effectively ensure success and therefore gives you the advantage of usurping a much smaller number of competitors. The internet is so easily accessible to everybody and just about anybody these days. This means that a good chunk of websites catering to a saturated market typically fizzle out because nobody pays attention to them. Nobody can pay attention to them. As cliche as it sounds, imagine you were after some ringtones, and you were hypothically standing infront of a crowd of about 20,000  people, with each individual screaming at you to visit their website. You will probably only comprehend what the people at the front are saying and probably give them a shot out of sheer convienience. Who knows what gems are sitting at the back of that crowd – but are you realistically going to sort through 20,000 websites to find the best ringtones site? Definitely not.

In closing, I think this book is absolutely fantastic and is highly recommended for anybody after something which can be applied to so many aspects of their lives. Running a website is simply something in which you need to sieze control of, and therefore act aggressively to stand out in such a competitive online world.