6. Distract in the East then strike from the West

Give the impression you are where you are not. If you are close make it look as if you are far away, if you are far away make it look as if you are close.

Let your competitor think you are moving into a market sector that is of little interest to you while you prepare for a completely different market sector. Your competitor will busily prepare to enter the wrong market sector, waste their resources and will not be prepared to deal with your new products

If your competitor shows interest in a new market sector, or appears to be investing additional resources in an existing sector investigate thoroughly what they are doing. They may be trying to distract you from their real attack which could be in an entirely different market sector.

This is the classic misdirection stratagem used in a situation where you are winning. It can be used by sellers and buyers to make it appear they are interested in a particular product, contract or territory only to then select something else.

If you want to enter a new market it is rarely a good idea the let you competitors know of your intentions in advance. Instead appear to be interested in something else, produce literature talking about your new interest, explain how you are looking at small incremental extensions of your existing product or service. If you do your job properly your competitors will be totally unprepared for your entry into their market.

I ran an operation in a country which carried out zero exporting to neighbouring countries. I encouraged my engineers to go on holiday into neighbouring countries and while on holiday to look at the locally produced equipment. The engineers reported back to the marketing department and we gave them a bonus for using some of their holidays gathering information. We developed suitable products for the export markets but issued press releases with details of products we were developing for the domestic market.

We entered all the neighbouring markets simultaneously with new products and gained significant orders. It took local producers more than two years to respond by which time we were issuing further new products.