Shouninjutsu

While Napoleon Dynamite might be a tad old news, aficionados of the Cartoon Network (or anyone who has tried to buy a birthday present for a pre-teen boy in the last 12 months) know that Naruto has taken center stage as the “Ninja du jour.” There always seems to be a spunky, heroic martial arts underdog lurking around the edges of popular culture.

And yet the underlying principles of “Ninjutsu” have been passed on by secretive ninja “families” for hundreds of years and have alway been embraced by “shadow warriors” seeking an unfair advantage against opponents with seemingly vastly superior resources.

So what is “Ninja Marketing?”

Successful Ninja marketers leverage the three primary traits that define a “ninjutsu” philosophy (thus the 3-pointed shuriken in the Shuriken Systems logo):

1. Simplicity
2. Agility
3. Speed

Simplicity– the shortest distance between two points is still a straight line, regardless of how many committees, corporate gatekeepers and self-proclaimed gurus say otherwise. Common sense and the 80/20 rule– when combined with the other “mad ninja skills” of Agility and Speed– will almost always get you farther faster than any other approach. The key is determining and absolutely mastering those few things that will really make a difference in your business. Forget about all the rest. At least for now.

Speed– You’ve got to be able to move fast. One of the key advantages of the relatively smaller or at the very least more entrepreneurially-oriented organization is the ability to make decisions quickly. In the four-dimensional universe that Einstein introduced us to over 100 years ago, TIMING is ironically the element that is often the most easily utilized in manipulating the physical world. Learn to leverage speed and you can “be there” and “do that” before your competition has a chance to even notice you’re in the room.

Agility– the ability to make immediate, even instantaneous, course corrections is a key advantage in the 21st century business world when your competition may need to convene multiple meetings and conference calls just to be able to identify a problem or opportunity– let alone get everyone to agree as to how to capitalize upon it. Focus on what you really need to accomplish without being married to how it gets done, and you’ll reinvent not only your own internal “business models,” but your entire industry as well.

Balancing your Mad Ninja Skills

Notice that all three characteristics are critical and keep each other in balance. The main reason to simplify is so that you can “lighten up” to improve agility, speed and focus. Speed is hardly an asset if you’re still carrying around too much baggage. And without agility and flexibility, “business at the speed of change” can be very brittle, indeed.

In future posts, I plan to comment in more detail about each of the three key aspects of a “Ninja Marketing”-focused enterprise.

But don’t expect me to share any of my sweet dance moves…;)

“Shouninjutsu”
Ninja Marketing

You’ve heard of “ninjas,” right? The sneaky little assassins always creeping around silently in old Japanese movies. Typically they wait until their opponents least expect it– usually the middle of the night. Then they slip through the tightest defenses, glide to the private bedroom of their most powerful enemies, slide open the shoji paper-screened doors, slink across the tatami floor and slit their throats before the victim has time to even blink.

Or perhaps during the hanami festival they hide in a tree 50 yards from where the target is taking a pleasant stroll enjoying the sakura cherry blossoms, when they take a small disc the size of a coaster from their sleeve and hurl a spinning, razor sharp shuriken chinese throwing star, and in less time than it takes to inhale, the enemy falls dead with the blade buried an inch deep, right between the eyes.

They never even had a chance to see it coming.

Marketing Martial Arts for the Life and Death Struggle to Survive and THRIVE in a Brutal Business World

This is not the watered down “guerrilla marketing” techniques that might have been fresh twenty years ago when people first starting talking about them. These are NOT the principles you will learn in the Harvard or Stanford MBA programs. And guess what– these are not even the “flavor of the month” marketing platitudes you’ll get from the latest flock of so-called “gurus.”

It’s all about strategy and tactics– Your “weapons” and how to use them.

Samurai have their katana, and yari, and yukinoshita do-style armour. Ninja have their shinobi shozoku, nunchaku and shuriken.

In most cases, for individuals and aggressive, growing businesses, a ninja-like approach to decision-making and action-planning is far superior to a more “samurai-style” process. And perhaps the most effective of all ninja weapons is the shuriken.

Shuriken (and shaken) are sometimes called chinese throwing stars or throwing needles/daggers. The shuriken is a (relatively) long range weapon that is inexpensive, light, easily concealed, extremely accurate and fast. The target doesn’t even know what hit him until it’s already too late to react.

Simple, direct, powerful actions with maximum effectiveness.

So why do we call our company Shuriken Systems?

Think about it.