Overview
Sun Tzu's initial chapter is most commonly titled "Planning," but his
idea of planning is not how we think of it today. Today we think of
planning as putting together a list of tasks that we intend to perform. Sun
Tzu's "planning" doesn't involve putting together a plan of action. It
is
an objective analysis of the competitive situation before planning specific
actions.
Before going into any competitive situation, Sun Tzu wants us to look at
the overall situation and understand what is going to determine our success
or failure. In Sun Tzu's method, this is the first vital step in avoiding
failure and discovering success. In this step, he wants us to look at the
basic issues that will determine success or failure. This is a high-level,
strategic look at our situation.
He begins this discussion by giving you a framework within which you can
understand the nature of competition. In our sales version, we call
this chapter "Decision-Making." A salesperson, like all competitors, must
make a series of decisions. Our decision-making is only as good as the
information we have, but that information depends on asking the right
questions. To do this, we must know which factors really determine the
outcome of the competition. That is what Sun Tzu tries to teach us here.
You use Sun Tzu's form of sales analysis to weigh a variety of sales
situations. It is scalable, that is, it works equally well for both large
and small decisions. You can use it to decide which company you should work
for, but you can also use it to decide if a particular order is worth
pursuing. Because these analytical skills are so useful, you want them to
become almost a habit. They should come to mind whenever you are thinking
about sales situations. Many of Sun Tzu's lessons are tactical, that is,
appropriate only to certain situations, but his basic competitive analysis
is universally valuable.
