After years of training in martial arts, I realize a lot of martial artists who are highly skilled in the art of fighting don’t look very dangerous. In fact, they may want you to look at them and perceive them to be of no threat. And that’s the danger…
We never know how dangerous or vicious someone else maybe. Every enemy should be treated as a threat. We should never let our guards down even if the enemy seems weak and vulnerable.
A lot of players out there do not live the Sales Ninja Code of Honor. Realize that your enemies will play dirty. If you think you are in a fair world, you are living in la-la land. It’s a brutal world out there and a lot of people are out there and out to make a kill.
A sales manager selling office equipment who recently attended my training shared with me this situation. His company does not do much marketing and has lost some top of the mind position in the market. Whenever someone asks about his company, his competitor will always say, Company A is no longer in business. Though they don’t grow aggressively and don’t do much marketing, they are in fact still in business. His competitor knows this and gives false information to the marketplace. That’s playing dirty!
Lesson one == Enemies play dirty, never let your guard down!
Wal-mart is the world’s largest public company by revenue. Started in the ’60s targeting small towns, other ‘giant’ retailers didn’t care that there is this small tiny retailer trying to make a mark in the retail world. They thought, “they are just some small player, we are big enough and untouchable, ignore them.” What happened? Some of these ‘giants’ died, some going bankrupt, some surviving, some woke up and went niche as a strategy.
Lesson two == Just because your opponent is small, doesn’t mean he’s not a good fighter. Be careful with small enemies.
FedEx was founded in the ’70s. UPS was founded in the 1900s. 70 years of experience more, but FedEx manages to emerge as a big player. Mongolia is a small country but went out and conquered half the world. Alexander the Great took 50,000 men and made a mark in history. History has proven again and again the small can out beat the big.
I don’t know who said this but it makes some sense, “the bigger they are – the dumber they get”.
Bigger players tend to be complacent. They tend to get arrogant and overconfident. When they wrapped themselves around this belief, they become prone to success blindness. They gave birth to a monster within them. They continue to feed this monster and eventually, the monster outgrows them and kills them. This monster is known as our ego.
Our ego can protect us. When we are faced with difficult challenges, our ego can tell us we can overcome them. But when our ego is fed with arrogance, it gets stronger and destroys us.
Don’t think you are the best fighter in the world. I’m not saying confidence is bad. Just make sure we don’t get overwhelmed with our own success and abilities that it covers our eyes and stops us from strategically assessing our true strengths and weaknesses.
It is always better to live the Sales Ninja Code of (Improvement – Code #10 of the Sales Ninja Code), rather than living in the illusion of we are the al-mighty. We will never be able to improve ourselves if we don’t look for things to improve. Ego, complacency, procrastination, blaming, arrogance, excuses are all great enemies.
Lesson three == Keep an eye on our most dangerous enemies as they are sneaky and hides inside us. And always improve in all areas.
UNCONVENTIONALLY,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster
// Never Underestimate Your Enemy!
// By Hanzo Ng, Sales Ninja Grandmaster
Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their salespeople into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation, and leadership training, visit our website.
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