Hardball strategy

What is hardball strategy?

Hardball strategy means competing aggressively to win decisively, within legal and ethical limits. George Stalk Jr. and Rob Lachenauer made the case in Harvard Business Review in 2004. They contrasted companies that compete to win outright with those content to post respectable results. One move they describe is attacking the markets where a rival earns its best profits.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Commercial services markets are local, and share moves one bid list at a time. A hardball-minded revenue leader picks the accounts and territories where a rival earns its best margins and concentrates sellers and pricing there. The line matters as much as the intent. Sharp pricing and focused targeting are fair competition, while misusing a rival's confidential information or misleading customers crosses it.

A mechanical services company sees that its largest rival earns much of its margin on hospital maintenance agreements in one county. It assigns its two strongest sellers and a dedicated estimator to that segment for a year. It wins 9 of the 30 agreements that come up for renewal and forces the rival to defend its base on price.