Gorilla Or Guerilla Strategies: How To Win

Many businesses these days are up against the big gorillas -- those competitors that try to crush you and deal with everyone head-on in an aggressively competitive way. This can be in the form of a price war or some other battle to dominate the market. For a small business, it can be extremely dangerous to try to take on gorillas if you can't withstand a battering. So how do small businesses cope with gorilla style competitors and get ahead in such a competitive environment? The answer is to use guerilla tactics which are a much gentler way of doing business that still allows you to be successful. Here are a few guerilla strategies worth considering:

Get their first

Large gorilla style companies tend to react very slowly to changes in trends and in a fast-moving marketplace. As a small business, you are likely to be able to act much faster, so keep a close eye on developments and be ready to move in there before the gorillas even know what's going on -- get to the customers before they do.

Stay focused

Staying focused means keeping things tight -- be a specialist in your business area you know a lot about your products and services. Big gorillas tend to run large, unwieldy companies with lots of products and lots of dealings with manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and so on. If you can get good at a few things, you can beat a gorilla by becoming a genuine expert in your area.

Go small

Gorilla companies tend to go for huge volumes -- that's how they can keep their prices low -- but if you employ guerilla tactics and go for small opportunities, you will appeal to a different niche. Look for sensibly sized opportunities with lots of potential and leave the gorillas to do what they do best -- then they will leave you alone.

Be smart

In order to take on the gorillas you have to be very smart. You have to beat them with intellectual tactics not bullying tactics. One of the best ways to do this is to plan your strategy carefully -- think ahead and look for smaller opportunities that can outsmart the gorillas. Also, you should constantly analyze your business and check where you're at.

Be flexible

Big gorilla organizations are often too large to be flexible -- as a small business, you can adapt quickly and easily to your customers’ needs and to your suppliers. A guerilla company is not ruled by policies and regulations in the same way as a gorilla organization and this gives you a huge advantage in flexibility.

Go for loyalty

Guerilla companies are better able to attract good staff, motivate them and inspire loyalty because smaller companies are often more passionate about what they do and are able to deal with people on a more personal level. This gives employees more of a sense of contribution and accomplishment, whereas within a gorilla company, employees can feel lost in the numbers and however hard they try, it is difficult for gorilla companies to compete on this level.

Loyalty can also apply to customer loyalty and guerilla companies can often provide a much better personal service to customers than a large gorilla organization is able to achieve. As a small business, you can work on earning the loyalty of your employees and customers and get ahead of the gorillas in a peaceful way.

Keep your overheads low

A guerilla company is usually better at keeping costs under control, not least because small business owners are more in touch with the day-to-day running of their company. Enormous gorilla organizations tend to become more expensive to run as they grow and when managers are employed to look after the finances and allocate funds, costs can start to creep up. As a guerilla company you have far more control over your overheads and this is good for your bottom line.