We weren't only ones who loved Marlon. He had a loyal following of regular customers and was busy all time. Not only did he do a terrific job, he was personable and fun to have around.

When he decided to retire, he trained Trish, his daughter, to take over his business. She was also fun and personable, so there was a smooth transition. Unfortunately, we started having trouble as soon as she took over. It started with snow pads, which are rubber inserts that go between hoof and shoe and which are supposed to prevent snow from building up in shoe. The snow was building up in spite of snow pads, and our horse was walking on chunks of ice size of tennis balls. A farrier problem.

You must not only run, but you must run in a zigzag pattern.

What if it were a mountain lion? Stand your ground, and make yourself appear as big as possible by holding out your arms and, if wearing a coat, opening it so it makes you look even larger. Mountain lions respect size and probably won't attack if they think you are bigger than they are. ("Probably!")

What about a bear? Play dead. Bears lose interest if you don't fight.

What's lesson here?

Know your enemy and exploit their weaknesses.

Let's think about that in terms of our businesses. If we know our competition (the 'enemy' in this analogy) and we know their weaknesses, we can exploit them to come out on top. For example, speed has always been an issue in shipping business. UPS has always been very efficient, but sometimes we need to get documents delivered overnight. UPS wasn't setup to do that. Enter Federal Express. They found a weakness in system (speed of delivery) and capitalized on it, offering overnight delivery no matter what. Their advertising slogan is a classic: "When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight."

In first example, an entire business (Federal Express) was built around a weakness. But what if we have an existing business that has a head-to-head competitor?