For about as long as I can remember, I’ve been aware of the idea of strategy. Back when I played middle school football, we learned about two big strategic principles: pile up resources at the greatest area of need, and (contrariwise) deploy resources away from the point of contact, to A)trick the opponent into deploying their resources poorly (play action pass), or B)dilute your opponent’s resources in hopes of a mismatch (stretching the field with a fast, deep-threat wide receiver, in order to create opportunities over the middle).

In marketing, examples of these two tactics might be:
Concentration of resources:
• A retailer spending a majority of advertising budget between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to coincide with consumer behavior
• A manufacturer assigning a full-time rep to a single customer company, in order to cultivate deep relationships, secure the customer’s loyalty, and expand the footprint within that customer company
• Coordinating national, regional, and local advertising around specific “promotional” periods, and focusing messages on the specific offers of the promotion.

Generally, these are strength-against-strength tactics. They are very logical. And they will work, over time, given a solid product, a competitive price, and continuous, predictable demand.

Contrarian deployment:
• A retailer, recognizing the trend toward post-holiday sale shopping, saves the majority of its advertising budget for a post-holiday sale blitz
• A manufacturer who is well know in one industry, but less known in other industries, assigns a full-time rep to getting first purchases (trial) from customers in adjacent industries, while “milking” the industry in which they are established…risking that their products will become commodities in the established industry, as the threat the industry as a cash cow
• A manufacturer launches a directly competitive product with a media blitz in the hometown (or a strong market) of an established brand, forcing the established brand to “defend its turf”—the hope is that the established brand will over-react (overspend) or get distracted from their core business…creating opportunities elsewhere
• A brand with a cash advantage spends excessively in a market “owned” by a less liquid competitor, forcing the competitor to defend what it might otherwise have taken for granted…milking the competitors limited resources.

Of course, these strategies are all risky, and none of them can really be considered long-term strategies. Their purpose is to change the status quo, so it would be silly for someone to employ them who benefits from the status quo.

One problem with some upstart start-ups is that they become very good at contrarian tactics, to the point that these tactics become part of the culture. But, when they become the man, they are still culturally inclined to fight the man. They don’t know how to act like category leaders.

The job of the category leader is to promote the category. So, category leaders should use strait-forward, logical (boring) strategies, in order to signal to consumers, competitors, and vendors what the category is doing. This may seem charitable, but it really isn’t. A lot of people (probably most) want to do business with the confident leader. So, by successfully taking the leader posture, a company is effectively blocking competitors from potential customers. Think of Tide, Cheer, Crest, Gleam, Head ’n’ Shoulders, Clorox, and Shout. By being the voice vendors listen to for direction regarding how to sell to the category, a company puts itself first in line to negotiate the best deal with potential vendors. And by signaling to competitors, a leader gives itself a home field advantage.

Everybody else’s job is to take shots at the category leader, by slicing off niche markets, cherry picking high-value customers, and/or offering a mass-market alternative (me-too) choice to consumers. When number two becomes number one, the whole category can feel shock waves for a while.

We were having lunch today with Kristen, over at Lemongrass. And she mentioned that she was starting to become interested in the herbs and spices Anne and I (and her sister and mother) use to stay healthy. I think this is pretty cool, because Kristen is young enough and generally healthy enough that it might do her some real good (as opposed to what it does for me, which is to keep me from completely falling apart.

Then later, I was looking at some companies around here (some of which we have done some work for). I noticed that the company formerly known as Perception Kayak is working with an outfit called Verde PR (or something like that). It’s a PR firm out of Colorado that claims to be all about green companies and companies that are into outdoorsy stuff (not sure I see the connection, but I guess it’s a different generation). Anyhow, this gave me an idea.

We eat almost no red meat. And we take hundreds of dollars a month worth of supplements (I mean fists full every single morning). So why shouldn’t companies that are committed to that sort of thing be interested in what we can do. Especially since we have some capabilities and a track record with things like HTML, specialized web tactics, text messaging, loyalty campaigns, insider communications, and stuff like that.

So, with renewed enthusiasm, I am going to start tracking down Earth Fare, Garners, and Greenlife. Or maybe, if they’re as sophisticated as they oughta be, their spiders will find this blog post and come looking for me. In any case, wouldn’t it be cool for folks like us to get to help folks like them? Well, let’s see what happens.

First of all, American Grocery was awesome last Thursday, as always. The place is a little bit of a secret, but it ought to be a destination. It would be worth coming to Greenville from Asheville, Charlotte, Columbia, or Atlanta to eat at American Grocery. I had the duck. I always enjoy whatever I have, but I can’t get past the duck. Duck’s so good it’s almost daffy.

Good time with the smart little brother. Look forward to seeing him again in a month or so.

Next order of business. A shout-out to my friend Willie, who gave me a really funny mug, about my really funny mug (check out those Bugs Bunny teeth). Willie seems to see right through me, no matter how hard I try to appear to be a normal person.

This week has been full of meetings and proposals. It’s one of the most stressful things I do. We did one for a school, one for a law firm, one for another school, one for an awesome town in Virginia, with a cool railroad station, a presidential birthplace, an awesome women’s college, and a 100-year-old brass band (more on that later). Had a great conversation with my pals in North Carolina about a small performance venue. We talked about some of the things they do and some of the artists that perform there. But they had me at Merle Haggard (“you don’t have to call me Waylon Jennings, and you don’t have to call me Charlie Pride, and you don’t have to call me Merle Haggard, long as you are on my fightin’ side, and I’ll hang around as long as you will let me, I never minded standin’ in the rain, you don’t have to call me “darlin,” darlin, you never even call me by my name.”) Could turn out to be a good week.

Smart little brother is back in town. Could you feel the lift in the median IQ of South Carolina about 7:00 this morning? He said the secret conversations with those people about that thing are going well. Nuff said.

We’re off to American Grocery. I’ll give you a review. Yeeha! Good times.

So, we met last Saturday about 7:00 in the morning at Miss Anderson’s house, to head off for our annual adventure at G-Hills. The trip was pretty uneventful—if a 7+ hour trip with a van-load of fundamentalists can be uneventful. We stopped on our way out of town to pick up some hymnals at the chapel. Interrupted Stan’s prayer breakfast, which gave Stan the opportunity to come out and wish Maxine a happy week. It was sweet.

Got our hymnals and got on the road. Made the obligatory Starbucks stop in Bristol, VA (just across the boarder from Bristol, TN, where the speedway is). Learned that Cheryl doesn’t drink coffee, but to be social she gets hot chocolate whenever she goes to Starbucks (I honestly didn’t know Starbucks had hot chocolate, but it makes sense). About two-thirds of the way we stopped for gas and lunch—a fateful stop in my opinion.

Pumped gas into the giant van. Got rhino-virus on my hands. Insufficiently washed hands before eating lunch. Got a sandwich at Arby’s, rather than a salad (increasing the likelihood of mucous. Sat in the over-cranked air conditioning, breathing truck-stop air. By the time we were back on the road I was feeling fatigued. By the next day, my throat was scratchy. Then it moved to a full-fledged sore throat…then chest congestion…then head congestion. Ended up laying out of meetings for a whole day. We blew off the camp food for the second half of the week, so we could stock up on the good greens. Began to fight back. Feeling somewhat better now. Somewhat.

The speakers were awesome. My good friend Alan Gamble, from Glasgow spoke on Nehemiah. Great lessons in leadership and nation building. His wife Elizabeth played the piano for several meetings—she’s really good. They call it the two-for-one deal. While we were there, G-Hill traded their grand piano for a digital. If you can’t say something nice about a piano, don’t say anything. So I won’t.

Also, got to hear Bruce Hulsheizer and John Gordon for the first time. They were pretty good—Bruce in 1 Tim. and Johnny in James.

We also, of course, had side trips. We went to Gettysburg for tea. And we visited the round barn—got an apple cider vinegar remedy that is made about 20 miles from here (discovered that later). And we went to a place called Ollie’s, which I guess is the Yankee equivalent to Big Lots.

Ride back took forever. It always does. Stopped at a little town in VA—Buchannon I think. Ate at a family diner. They tell me the sweet corn was awesome, and they wouldn’t lie about sweet corn.

It’s good to be back.

We’ve had this noise around here that sort of resembles the engine room of an oil tanker. It’s this floor-vibrating rumble. Started about two or three months ago, occasionally at first. Then, when we came in this morning, it was constant. For Kristen and Seth, it was like being part of the crew of the Titanic. We decided we needed to do something about it—a prospect that inevitably involves our friend and general contractor, Koko Korver.

Koko came by, poked around the back of our offices, and suggested that it might be upstairs. So we went up to visit our friends at M33 (one of South Carolina’s fastest growing companies according to Elliot Davis). Nobody was there except Nancy Edge, because the air conditioning was out, and since it was about 100 degrees around here today, that could be life threatening. Anyhow, Nancy gave us permission to poke around. And Koko found it!

The little flapper thing was worn in the toilet of the ladies’ room. So the water never stopped running…but it never really started running either. So, the valve had worn out gradually (sort of like what happens when you ride the clutch on a stick shift car). And as the watter ran constantly through this half-open valve, it vibrated the valve. And the valve, through sympathetic vibration, vibrated the plumbing around it, which in turn vibrated all of the plumbing in the building. The whole thing would turn this 100-year-old brick building into a resonator…a speaker housing…a giant, one-note, rumbling pipe organ.

The solution, turn the water off to that toilet. Noise went away. Everyone was happy. Of course, the folks upstairs will have to get a plumber to come and replace the guts of the toilet. But then—sweet silence!

You gotta meet Koko. While he was here, he told us a great story about the early days of his company. Seems that Joel (Koko’s dad and my favorite missionary) had started the company and sold it. They guy who bought it built it up into a thriving general contractor, built entirely on negotiated design-build projects. But then the guy got sick. And the negotiating stopped. And for a while, they had plenty of work, because all the contracts were pretty large and long-term. But, just as the guy was bowing out of the company (leaving it in Koko’s hands), the work dried up.

So Koko, trained to be a missionary not a general contractor, was left with a crew, a contractor’s license, and … no work. So, at the end of every day the crew would say, “what are we gonna do tomorrow?” And Koko would say, “I don’t know; come into the office and we’ll see.” And they would come into the office, have prayer together, do some Bible study and some devotions. And then … the phone would ring! “Hello. Yes. I think we can fit you in. How does … ah … right now sound?” And the crew would head out and do the job, and they would make their expenses.

This went on for months. Then, business picked up. And now the company is a well established general contractor in the area. But before they got to learn about things like cash flow, work flow, inventory, tax strategy, sales pipelines… or anything else, they got to learn about faith.

This is principle #18 of the 21 principles. And we really try to follow it. After all, no one of us can possibly be as smart as all of us. But to illustrate this principle, Anne discovered still another benefit of teaching a Sunday school class of teenage girls. Of course, the coolest part is watching these little girls struggle through this awkward time and come out the other side beautiful, unique, spiritually curious young women. But there are other things too.

Jules, it seems, is ga-ga over a singer songwriter named Jason Mraz. Now, we had never heard of Jason Mraz. So, in order to keep an eye on things that influence Julia’s young mind, and in order to be conversant on things that matter to her, Anne googled Jason. We learned that he lives in the middle of an avocado farm outside of San Diego…that he has a cute little Paul McCartney sort of voice…and that he has a style that is perfect for a certain brand located on the world’s most isolated populated land mass.

Thanks for the help, Jules. You rock.

At about 6:00 this morning, I was dropping my little brother off at GSP, for his return flight to New York. He was here for a lightning fast three-day visit, to talk to somebody (I could tell you who, but, well, I just can’t) about something (I can’t even begin to tell you what).

My little brother, sometimes known among friends as my “egghead” little brother, works for the conference board. You know them as the people who bring us the Index of Leading Economic Indicators (quantifying that the economy is going to heck in a hand basket) and the Consumer Confidence Index (quantifying that although the economy is going to heck in a hand basket, you couldn’t tell it to see people spending like drunken sailors). He is not an economist. Nor is he a PhD. He is a human resource researcher, with a background and education in organizational communication.

It was fun introducing him to the staff. They made the mistake of asking him what he did. His explanation was conceptual poetry of a sort (dude used “causal” and “empirical” in the same sentence). We went over to the Lazy Goat for dinner on Monday—somebody has to explain to American Grocery that if this is going to be a food town, they have to be open on Mondays. We ate a bunch of vaguely middle-eastern tapas things.

Then yesterday, we had a special treat. Our friend Katherine had us over for a basic, simple, home dinner. It was fun watching two of my favorite smart people get to know each other. Each has since expressed delight in having met the other, so as a connector I have had a victory.

Looks like my little brother might be coming back to talk some more with those people about that thing. I hope so. It’ll be fun hanging out some more.

We have a young friend, the 13-year-old daughter of our neighbors up the street, who is a very promising runner. She is already the fastest girl on her high school track team in the mile and 2-mile races. AT 13! So, just to improve and train, she has to find people to run with. She used to run with the boys. But now, she’s faster than the boys. Sometimes she runs with one of her coaches. A while back, she got to run as a guest (I think in the marathon world they call them “pirates” or something like that—people who run the course, during the race, even though they are not registered) with another team, on which two of the state’s top runners are members. I understand she fonud that to be a cool challenge.

We have another friend, a 21-year-old woman, who is a very accomplished runner. Runs track and cross country for a college in North Carolina. Wins a lot of medals and stuff. We’re hoping to introduce our two friends. We think Dana (the older one) would be a great influence on Caroline (the younger one)…in a lot of ways. And being able to help a younger girl might also be very satisfying to Dana.

I hope the whole thing works out, because they are both very special people. I know this, because I have observed them (partially through the eyes of both sets of parents). But what’s really cool is that neither Dana nor Caroline seems to see anything particularly interesting or unusual about herself. To both of them…it’s just running. I know one thing; I could train for a year and get a quarter-mile head start, and they would both still leave me in the dust. Probably you too.

In the past few days, we’ve gotten blog hits from every continent except Australia and Antarctica. We’ve been visited from Hawaii, and just about every mainland U.S. time zone. And the other day we were hit from an island in the Indian Ocean, off of Africa, which I had never heard of (somebody interested in the post about “Wearing somebody else’s clothes”). I get to talk to folks I will never meet, in places I will never visit. And if I use the right search words, I might get visits from even more folks. Stuff like dune buggy, locust infestation, rat pack, brat pack, and free-for-all.

Just imagine how far people would travel to hit this blog if it were a big important blog by somebody like Alan Greenspan or Clint Black. Humbling to think about, really.