Oblique Tactics Frequently More Successful

Tilting at Windmills: One of the most famous incidents in Miguel Cervantes' book, Don Quixote De La Mancha, is the time when our favorite Cabellero decides that some windmills which he spies in the distance are evil giants who must be defeated. In Don Quixote's romantic view of chivalry, the only proper way to deal with these "giants" is to charge them headlong as though he were jousting with them.

Fortune Magazine recently published its list of the top companies to work for, Wegmans Food Markets topped the list. However one of the most important points in
this article
was the fact that Wegmans policy is "Employees first, Customers Second." This piece of apparent retail heresy has resulted in happy and delighted customers. The owner of the retail chain is quoted as saying, "It's hard for me to walk through a store without customers stopping me and saying, 'Mr. Wegman, you've got a great store but, wow, are your people something else."'

Mr. Wegman's success is due to using oblique tactics to produce success. He has acheived a high rate of customer satisfaction by placing his employees morale ahead of short-term customer satisfaction.

Unfortunately many businesses have not learned that charging headlong at a perceived problem frquently results in failure. Imagine with me, a young man who is looking for a date for the weekend. He sees a great looking woman, whom he has never met in the mall, walks up to her and says, "Hey gorgeous, let's go out on a date tonight." Although there actually is a chance that she might say yes, his statistical chances of acquiring her consent would be greatly improved by using oblique tactics.

Google.com publishes popularity information in its press department. The October 2004 list contained a factoid as to which news sources were the top five news sources in October 2004 (just before the US election). Third on the list was "The Drudge Report." What makes this interesting is that the Drudge Report does not publish a lot of articles. While other news sources may publish hundreds of articles in one day. The Drudge Report rarely produces Thirty articles in one month. The secret to the success of the Drudge Report website is that it has made itself into the number one gateway for links to Op/Eds, news wires, policy wonks and other sources of political news.

While other websites are trying to keep viewers on their website for as many pages as possible, the Drudge Report has become successful by helping people go to other websites.

Oblique tactics have also proven to be more successful in US Federal taxation. Because of the current percentage of taxation, when the Federal government lowers the percentage of taxation, the economic behavior patterns of wage earners in the US changes and the result is that lower taxes produces more federal revenue. Incredible, but true.

Have you ever been approached by a sales pitch that was so straightforward and aggressive that you immediately became overly defensive? When businesses attempt to charge full tilt into the marketing and sales arena, they frequently do their business reputation more damage than good. Your client should be wooed not assaulted.

It has been said that branding is a result of every point of contact which clients have with your company. If you want your company to be viewed by your public in a positive light, you need to use oblique tactics to nurture your relationship, instead of focusing only on today's revenues.