So last night I dusted off one of my favorite movies, the 1973 classic martial arts film Enter The Dragon. While watching it I began to see some great marketing wisdom in the dialog and found it be extremely timely and quite relevant concerning a current project I am engage in. I thought I would share with you the highlights of Enter The Dragon: Competitive Marketing.

“Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory”

Too often we have tight timelines, many moving parts, multiple contributors, and general the general chaos and distraction of life surrounding us while we are getting our go to market plans ready.It is very easy to focus solely on the tasks at hand with out stepping back and looking at the big picture. Often that picture is pretty fantastic, even while the current project you are working on may be a pain in the ass. Don’t forget that you are part of a team, and a business unit, and company all striving for the same thing - success in business and a great quality of life, however that is defined by both your industry, your company, and your family. Look up from your desk, take a walk, talk with a colleague and acknowledge the goodness in your efforts.

“Boards don’t hit back”

Practice. Practice. Practice. and then practice some more. Run your presentation by a group of peers before the keynote. Double check that persona one more time before running the scenario. Go back through notes, your email, your gut checks. Because there comes a time when you will be faced with real competition and must respond in real-time, to real threats, and must fight real battles in your market space, or at a closing meeting with a new client, or with the CMO of your company about how you think that a solution based positioning isn’t really an advantage for the market pentetration of the product and wont differentiate it in an already over crowded…. anyway. I digress.

Han: “Your style is unorthodox”
WIlliams: “But effective”

Many times we have to look deeper than our established bag of tricks, especially in a market that is fast moving, constantly changing, and that requires creativity, confidence and stamina to win. And not just win once, but to win repeatedly. I have always considered myself to be a bright guy, and the smartest thing that I do is to surround myself with people smarter than me. (or is it I. Smarter than I.. have to call my wife on that.)

Anyway, the point that Williams was making is that one should strive to be effective no matter what the method of action may require. I call on those around me to shake up my snow globe of ideas and see if they find patterns or data or insights that I may have missed. The way we finally get to a result may be a little odd, but those results are not.

“Never take your eyes off your opponent, even when you bow”

You never know the exact moment of opportunity and must be ready to either strike or defend in real-time. Defensibility in the market space is a one of the primary reasons certain startups don’t get handed their lunch by the fourth week of school. Great companies are constantly looking to defend and strengthen their position at every opportunity. And its not so much the “best offense is a good defense” mentality. It’s more to the point of be aware of your surroundings. If you are looking to gain a position in the market, you are damn certain your competition is looking to do the same. Just be sure not to get caught looking. Be prepared to act.

“Provide your customers with products they need and, uh, charge a little bit to stimulate your market and before you know it customers come to depend on you, I mean really need you. “

Ok, so in the flick they were talking about drug smuggling and corruption, but its the classic case of creating a need in the market, fanning it with desire, and capturing the trust of your clients. During my storied career as a tech sales guy I never really sold the product (which might be why I eventually was fired.) What I did sell though was need - need for the product or service that we could provide. And I would compare that to my competition, noble warriors all, but just not quite as good as what we had to offer. And then I would show them how they could trust me, and that I had our mutual best interest in hand. Oh, and if they bought now I would take off an additional 12% on signing. Need + desire + dependency. Its not just for romance novels anymore.

“You must attend the morning ritual in uniform.”

Come prepared. Most reasons we miss that window of opportunity is that we don’t recognize it as it is coming toward us, see it only as its passing by, or see it early but just cant get ready to anything about it. Come to work ready to work. Go to a house party ready to party. Be present and appropriate and provide both context and content for whatever you are doing. And that goes for your marketing plan as well. A key word here is ritual. Practice, reverence, and habit can be key to developing a winning marketing strategy.

Enter The Dragon is only one of many examples of films that provide nuggets of introspection and learning within the dialog. Now its up to you. I would love to hear about your movie insights and how they align with your industry. Post them in the comments. If they are especially good, I’ll send you the movie of your choice as a “thank you”.

Bonus points if you can define Market Readiness from The Big Lebowski. Have fun.