Food For Thought: What Cannibals Teach Us About Sales
Plenty of friends in our animal kingdom eat their family members. Some cannibalism is ritualistic, strategic and customary like the black widow, praying mantis, and scorpion. Other cannibalism is opportunist, unexpected and occasional like some fish, birds, hamsters, bats, seals, otters, chimpanzees, and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.
Who me? Yes, I’m a cannibal.
Sand tiger sharks are unique in their cannibalistic ritual in that they are the only species that starts the ritual in their mother-shark’s uterus. Sand tiger shark embryos develop sharp teeth and a mighty hunger…for their lesser embryotic siblings. The competition for survival starts before birth and it is fierce. By the time the mother sand tiger shark gives birth from both of her two uteruses, only the two strongest shark-pups emerge.
sand tiger shark embryo
We all unwillingly practice small amounts of self-cannibalism every time our body consumes dead cells from our tongue and cheeks. Nail biting self-cannibals must find themselves’ even more irresistibly delicious.
Corporate or market cannibalism occurs when a new product or service consumes the sales and demand of an existing product or service. When you engage in cannibalism as a planned and ritualistic practice, it can be a powerful tool to increase market share of a new or growing market. When cannibalism occurs unexpectedly it will generally have a negative impact on your overall sales.
Your business is never too young to be a fine cannibal. If you are at the business planning stage, think like a sand tiger shark. Are there elements of what you sell that you treat just bit too preciously? Should you kill those off and launch with the more robust solutions for your buyers? What products, solutions, and strategies have the best chance to survive birth?
While consuming your competitors may seem like a delicious solution, you may have to self-cannibalize instead.
While you grow your business, continue to assess what products, services or elements of either that you should nibble at or completely consume before a competitor does. (The Apple iPad was not just coincidentally hungry for a delicious Apple Macintosh). Strategically employing this cannibalism may be distasteful, but it can effectively grow your market and it often better meets consumer demands. Planning this into your business allows you to estimate whether profits generated from the cannibal, offset profits from the cannibalized. It also allows you to assess what strategic things you may need to kill in order to shift into new markets or in order to reflect a better brand—even when that brand is you.
Becki Saltzman is the author of Arousing the Buy Curious: Real Estate Pillow Talk for Patrons and Professionals and the founder of Arousing the Buy Curious, the place where the Sexy Mind Science of wildly successful sales is unleashed.