0:06 good morning and afternoon and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific time at 2 p.m eastern time for a half hour to talk about how we can apply military Doctrine history and leaders to making our businesses more successful whether it's a business that we started and run or whether it's a business for which we work doesn't really matter the principles for business success
0:42 transcend who owns the business and and so I think you will find no matter where you're coming from in that regard I think you will find these lessons valuable um because we really get into a lot of the nitty-gritty of what it takes to to get a business built get it prosperous so for the last several weeks we've been talking about how we can apply Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine to business and I always take a moment to mention I
1:19 do not consider business to be Warfare um rarely is is business and existential um undertaking perhaps if you're in the healthcare industry or you're you know you know brain surgeon or something like that then of course people's lives may be at stake however the way you run your business won't necessarily be something that would be the difference between life and death for an individual patient or hopefully not um but having said that much of what we
1:57 need to do to be successful in combat we can apply to being successful in business and that's our our launching point so we're going to continue with with our discussion of Marine Corps Doctrine bring up my PowerPoint here I think I've got it see I have it all set this time and here we go okay so here we are the way to wow business lessons from the military and and everything we do on on the way to wow shows revolves around the
2:32 three pillars of attainment we're operating primarily here in the Pursuits pillar and and even more specifically in finances um however as you will see or hear as we go through this oftentimes these principles apply to other areas as well and I'm not sure why that's not advancing there we go so in Prior um shows we talked about levels of activity strategic operational tactical and then after that we talked about actions initiative and response I invite
3:07 you to go to our YouTube channel at the way to wow shows on YouTube and you can view previous shows for business lessons from the military and I'll talk about the other shows in our series at the end of of today and we're going to continue now with the theory of War um adapted to business so our topic for today is styles of warfare or what we might call styles of of business
3:42 so um what I mean oops went there so this is I think one of the more difficult um theories to translate from from combat to the business World um but but I think once we unders once once we get a better understanding of these two ideas you will you will see quite readily how they apply so there are essentially two ways that
4:19 Warfare is conducted in a linear fashion and on a maneuver basis so other terms we might use for these are for for linear we might call it attrition so we've we've got an objective and we're just banging and banging and banging and banging until basically we break down that objective and we we conquer it we we you know kill or or or wound all the forces on the other side we destroy their ability to maintain
4:56 combat integrity and and and now we have one the other and the other side is maneuver where we won't necessarily but we're destroying all of the enemy's combat capability may not be a prerequisite for victory so if you consider how victory was attained by the Allies in World War II in the Pacific Theater initially was thought you know how are we going to do this because um U.S military thinking as well as the
5:31 other allies was still very much focused on a linear on an attrition-based basis and in a huge ocean like the Pacific that just wasn't work and and so um both General MacArthur who led the Southwest Pacific command and um Admiral Nimitz who led the Central Pacific command They Came Upon a strategy whereby it wasn't so important to reconquer every island that the Japanese had taken
6:08 rather what was more important was to be able to move forces ever closer to the Japanese Homeland in a way that that Allied combat Force could be maintained and in many cases they skipped over islands and in doing so they didn't destroy the Japanese garrisons there what they did is they cut off the Japanese ability to supply those garrisons and eventually either the soldiers had to be withdrawn or you know
6:44 they perished on those islands so the the sort of direct banging away at every single Island was not necessary the idea was to get close enough to the Japanese Homeland in order that um the leadership of of Imperial Japan would feel threatened and then uh you know hopefully have them um uh um what's I've lost the word um give up unconditionally give surrender unconditionally okay so you might be thinking why how does this
7:19 apply to business well I I think there's a very important application and and we're I think we're in the midst of a very important evolution in how business is conducted right now so it used to be that business was very much a linear almost an attrition type function meaning that a pro you know a producer of a product for example so they would they would it was it was like hard sell all the way
7:54 and if you've ever seen movies like Glengarry Glenn Ross um where they have these um uh phone calling pools and very very hard South it meant not all that all that mattered was producing sales okay and that was that was very much the attitude of business for quite a long time so it was a very linear approach and it was a linear approach not just to selling to customers but also cutting out the competition so there was no sense of uh
8:32 competitors sort of getting along in a a greater ecosystem for their business so so for example today if you look at the the market for coffee houses or coffee shops whatever you want to call them the the um Starbucks Peet's Coffee um The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf I'm sure there are there are others in in your local area so when Starbucks first started in the 1970s and started to gain Traction in
9:07 the marketplace it was assumed that they were just going to wipe out all of their competitors because that's what had happened before when a category killer had come in so for example with the Advent of Office Depot and Staples when these large office supply chains developed where you could go into their stores where they just had thousands upon thousands of products right there
9:42 available to you they wiped out all the small office supply stores in their area in their country in fact I I remember when that happened I was I was in business at that time and I had a friend who she and her husband owned a very popular albeit one store office supply store in the West Los Angeles area and I I patronized their business for years and years and years I used to love to go into their
10:17 store very personalized service they knew everything you could know about office supplies if they didn't have it in the store they knew where to get it oftentimes they would drop stuff by my office if it was if I came in and it wasn't available and it wasn't like they had a delivery service per se it's just my friends sometimes she would just come by on her way home and say hey this came in Kevin I thought I'd drop it by on my way home a very very personalized uh service you know ongoing relationships with your customers when Staples came in and and Office Depot came in they
10:54 struggled and struggled and struggled and eventually they went out of business they could not compete they couldn't the what what office uh Depot and Staples could sell their products for was just so much lower than what they could sell their products for they couldn't stay in business and and virtually every small office supply store in Los Angeles was wiped out and and that's what the category Killers sought to do just destroy the competition right and and now you know and and by
11:31 the way there was and there was a third there was Office Depot Staples and there was a third one and eventually the third one was destroyed see I don't remember its name now but there were three big ones and now all you have left is Office Depot and Staples and and they constantly are battling it out I think for one to destroy the other that's how it is in office supplies now people thought the same thing was going to happen with Starbucks that they were going to come in and just wipe out all the small quaint coffee houses
12:06 that is not what happened now I I don't want to say I don't know that it was by Design or not I I from what I've read about how Howard Schultz conceived um Starbucks he had no particular desire to destroy other small coffee houses and indeed Starbucks did not what Starbucks did was it raised the bar of people's expectations for Quality coffee um it probably had a bad effect on
12:44 um well it did have a bad effect on on like um jack-of-the-box and McDonald's places like that where people would get their coffee where the coffee was historically pretty pretty mediocre at best but for these small coffee houses that were that had always served premium coffee and had things like lattes and cappuccinos and all these you know coffee drinks it actually didn't cause them to go out of business it brought them more business because all of a sudden every coffee drinker was looking for that premium coffee experience that Starbucks
13:21 brought to you know to everyone I was going to say to the masses I I don't really I don't like that term but but to every everyone all of a sudden could start appreciating really great coffee and and it forced so even even a company like McDonald's which is the largest restaurant company in the world it forced them to improve their coffee the same with uh I I think the same is true of Jack in the Box so McDonald's had their McCafe I think it was I think it's called um and and so it raised the bar for
13:57 everybody and nowadays the the coffee business uh the the coffee shop business is is flourishing and and and in fact Starbucks is probably has more problems than the typical small coffee house does um because they are so big they're so prominent and and and and you know they at times they over expanded or they tried certain products that didn't work so so I would argue that Starbucks is an
14:33 example of maneuver in business now here's what I mean by maneuver maneuver Warfare or maneuver combat Theory as applied to business okay now what so let me take a step back when we talk about maneuver applied to combat we're talking about the idea of Rapid advancing overwhelming the enemy in a way that they can't mount an effective defense and still destroying them right
15:08 because in the end in combat we do need to destroy the enemy's ability to fight so that destruction is there okay that sort of ultimate destruction in business we're not looking for that Ultimate Destruction what we're looking for is a melding of people's interests okay and when I say people's interests what I mean is we want to look at our potential customers and clients and say how do we serve them in a way that our
15:46 interests come together so rather than sort of you know beating a potential customer into submission so they finally buy like in the you know like I said in the old sort of you know um uh Bullpen sales you know phone sales things and things like that that's what we're looking to do we're looking to find out what do our customers what do our clients really need and how do we Supply those needs most effectively right and also now let's look at that in
16:21 in a business context let's take above our examples one of the problems that I think Staples and Office Depot have is they have no customer loyalty I mean I know for me if I can get it cheaper at Staples I'll go to Staples I prefer to go to Office Depot but only because it's closer to you know closer to where I live but but but Staples isn't so far away that you know an X for an extra five to maybe 10 minutes drive I'll go to Staples because in the end frankly neither one of their stores are
16:58 particularly attractive their selections aren't that much bigger um I mean their people are nice but I I rarely see the same people there um unless I happen to go back within a very short period of time so I have no connection to the people no long-term connection to the people who work there so you know they're essentially competing on price that's all they've got okay whereas when it comes to things like restaurants or where I go get a
17:33 coffee so I'm not so much coffee because I think Starbucks frankly has the same problem that you know uh um uh Staples and and Office Depot have but when I go to a restaurant I get to know the people who work there in fact at my daughters and my favorite restaurant we know everyone that works there and we know them pretty well we know a lot of their background what they've done in past jobs we know many of their likes and dislikes and they know us okay so
18:09 they have maneuvered I I don't mean they did anything underhanded or anything they their aim is when you come to this restaurant um by the way it's called the Milky Way I'll I'll give them a plug because because my daughter I love them so much when you go to the Milky Way what they aim to do is make you not make you but but have you enjoy yourself so much feel so at home that you come back right and that was historically what a great restaurant did and this is why the Milky Way has been around for I
18:45 think it's 40 years now because people come there year after year decade after decade so they're looking how do we satisfy our customers in a way that they'll want to come back okay and and that's the same thing in in any business now to really sus and especially if you're in some kind of profession whether it's real estate Financial Services um what you're looking to do is build relationships accounting uh the law okay
19:21 these have always been uh relationship driven businesses in order to build that relationships those relationships you cannot just be pounding pounding pounding on your clients it doesn't work you've got a maneuver and maneuver requires us to know a lot about the people with whom we're dealing now in Warfare we want to know about them so that we can destroy them in business we want to know about them so we can join with them okay and and and we we also want to be
19:59 able to maneuver so that as we confront the competition we're not so much looking to destroy the competition we're looking to stay ahead of the competition that's also a maneuver function and it's better because the the market for premium coffee has just exploded over the last roughly 50 years um and and it Contin not just in coffee shops in terms of uh coffee available in grocery stores now you have all kinds of
20:36 coffee makers I know when I was a kid all you had was the percolator and it was this is it would just percolate the water would churn through the grounds and I mean if it sat for any length of time I'm tall because I didn't drink coffee back then I became very bitter very strong oily it was like the coffee was not great now you have you have drip coffee makers you have you know Cuisinart coffee makers you've got um um uh with the pods um obviously Keurig coffee makers you have um nests um uh what is it called uh not
21:14 Nest Cafe um they make the the pods too for making um uh for making espresso and cappuccinos and such um shoot I can't tell you what it's called I have a machine in my kitchen right I've got I have actually uh three coffee machines in my kitchen I have a Keurig I've got a Cuisinart for on uh for for you know making a whole big pot of coffee a carrot to make an individual one and then I have my one for making cappuccinos and uh I mean I don't drink cappuccinos but espressos
21:49 um Nespresso that's it Nespresso right so we have all of these coffee makers now by the way this was pretty common in um Europe long before it was common here in the United States okay and but the coffee business the United States has just exploded in the last 50 years that's due to maneuver a maneuver style of business where where companies just even even small companies when I say a small company a one store uh coffee shop or
22:25 um I mean espresso was a was is not a big company originally it's since been bought and become part of a larger company but um where they've realized that to you know set up to destroy this one or this one there's no point in doing that what we need to focus on is making our products better finding more products that customers really like and and and promoting those and and creating a relationship with our customers so um I you know I I think by the way I I somewhat misspoke when I said that Starbucks is like
23:00 um uh Office Depot and Staples because in a way Starbucks seeks to create a relationship with their customer through this idea that that that their their cafes were were the uh the the sort of third living room I think they call it a second living room it was a place where people should come stay enjoy a cup of coffee read a newspaper so they did they tried to create they work to create a relationship with their customers even if it wasn't necessarily a relationship between the Barista and the customer it was a relationship between a particular
23:36 location and the customer so it's a you know a different way maybe of thinking about relationships but it was a relationship nonetheless let me just see how we're doing on time here oh wow I just it zoomed by so as we think about the theory of War as applied to business what kind of style are we going to which which type which style are we going to pursue are we going to pursue a linear style where we essentially attempt to bludgeon our clients and customers into buying from us into buying our services
24:11 buying our products or are we going to take a more fleet-footed maneuver type of attitude toward our customers and clients whereby we're looking to join with them to create a bond of some kind to create an ongoing relationship while we seek to outmaneuver stay ahead of competitors who are trying to break the bond we have with our customers and capture them themselves okay so that's what I have today uh please join me
24:48 every Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific Time 2 p.m Eastern Time an hour in for Central and mountain time we every week we talk about business lessons from the military in order to help you improve your business I want to mention my other two shows tomorrow is people making money where we talk about job hunting career development finances investing wealth building a broader look at how to pursue success
25:27 in the finance Realm of the Pursuits pillar of the three pillars of attainment sometimes I have guests who have a remarkable way of making a living and you can always join me live and ask me questions if I have a guest ask our guests questions just go to Eventbrite and you can get a free ticket to any of the shows that that are within the way to wow shows family and then on Mondays now just yesterday I launched a third show and it's called trusts and Estates weekly now this is a more specific show
26:04 for people who are involved in matters related to trusts and Estates so if you are a real estate professional a finance professional a lawyer and accountant and and you work in the estate and Trust area so please join me every Monday at 10 A.M Pacific 1 pm Eastern where we we're going to talk about all things related whether they be uh tax laws whether they be management
26:39 issues investment issues insurance issues okay we'll talk about documentation all of these issues related to working with Estates and trusts so I'm a professional fiduciary here in California that's part of my business and I work with these kinds of professionals and also from time to time I'll have guests on the show where you can talk to experts in their particular Fields whether it's law accounting Financial Services Etc so we have three shows in the way to wow shows family now on Mondays we have
27:16 um trust in a state weekly on Tuesdays business lessons from the military and Wednesdays people making money please do join me and as always if you for if you want to see past shows over 150 of them now go to my YouTube channel at the way to wow shows so thank you very much for joining me today looking forward to see seeing you tomorrow and next week and that just just leaves me to sign off and say Marie darling you are my Val have a wonderful rest of the day