It was only a couple of years back that I was introduced to the philosophy of the writer Hingori ji. I also had the good fortune to attend one of his live sessions in my city.
Hingori shared that he once had the opportunity to observe a spider at work, weaving its web. What was an observation of few hours, grew into a regular evaluation of the spider’s approach to catch its prey. The spider slipped down from its chosen spot many times but did not give up. Finally an intricate web made its appearance in the preferred position. This behavior of the spider inspired Hingori to completely modify his way of managing business.
Here are some takeaways from the talk about this observation.
- Selection of a thriving location which is frequented by one’s customers. This can be expanded further to include the choice of products/services which are preferred by the target group of customers. For this one needs to carry out a recce and a research of the area, the TG, the products/services, and the competitors.
- Weave an intricate web of schemes for the customers and processes for the internal stakeholders. One must keep reviewing these at regular intervals, implementing reforms and repairs wherever and whenever required.
- Ensure that the string for marketing is sticky, or in other words convincing, persuasive and influential. Both the marketing and the product should be relevant for the customers.
- Once the web of management is strong, spread out the business to cover more area and customers.
These are some of the strategies that emanate from thinking and managing one’s business like a spider. But what are the intentions behind these acts; let’s examine those:
- Adaptability and keeping up with the times emerges as a strong intention from the above strategies. A business should be responsive to the needs of the customers and should be able to reinvent itself within the given time.
- Continuous research, learning and development are other fundamental intentions for a successful implementation of the spider strategies. The process of unlearning, learning and re-learning should include everyone from the top to the bottom of the organisational hierarchy.
- Collaboration and networking are essential intentions to set up a structure similar to a spider’s web. Sharing and receiving information from one’s environment, observation of the business models of other players in the market and applying those in one’s business is a helpful mindset.
- Pull over push to buy is a prerequisite for the success for a spider’s web style of business management. A business should work on strengthening all its parts and aspects, and work on attracting the customers for business through the sheer power of high quality of products/services. The pull tactic conserves energy for planning and execution while catching well-paying and converted customers.
- Creating brand awareness through regular marketing should be an integral intention to the spider’s web business management model. The information should be relevant and disseminated widely to keep the business thriving and profitable.
This is definitely quite a line up from a small insect quietly carrying out its business. Now I wonder if there are any more inspirations that we can draw from our surroundings.
Video link