We all struggle how to manage and contain our competition in our business. We are also very poor in responding to competition attacks and many a times many such attacks and events are traps for an upcoming company to fall and fail at it. “When to bite and when not to” is a classic of how snakes deals with competition and we all, from management to CXOs (mainly CMO) and from startups to big conglomerates,  have to learn a business lesson from snakes on how to deal with such situations.

When to inject venom and when not to? Let’s learn a business lesson from Snakes

Do you know that in India, only 20% snakes are venomous and when they bite, do you know that only 10 per cent to 15 per cent of bites are venomous and remaining are Dry  bites? A dry bite is a bite of a snake where they never release the venom but juts a dry  bite – it will pain like hell but one will not die nor there is a need to take an anti-venom injection. 

Remember that all snakes act like venomous (only max 20% are venomous) and even that 20% when they bite, only max 15% of such bites are venomous. Which means of all the snake bites that happen, only 3% are venomous bites. Why is that?

We all think venom is just there for the snake to use but that’s not true. It takes a lot of effort to create and store the venom for the snakes. They know the value of the venom and they will never throw it away whenever they want to. Unless they are really really threatened by an enemy, they will never release the venom. They try to scare away the enemy without a bite and when required they will bite but won’t inject the venom (dry bite) just to scare the enemy. They will do the venom bite  ONLY when they feel it is absolute must to defend itself and it really threatened by the enemy.   Not just venom bite but the Snakes adjust the even the amount of venom they inject depending on the size of their prey, so as not to waste it. It knows it takes a lot of effort to create and store the venom and they will not waste it on unworthy enemies.

THE BUSINESS LESSON TO LEARN:

Snakes are very smart on when to use and how much to use the venom as they know how tough it is to create and store them. We also in our business, especially startups, we should be very careful on when to use our money, time, & effort as it is very tough to earn all of it. We have to be extremely prudent where to use, when to use and how much to use – be it in marketing or be it for competitive attacks or be it for defending your brand or territory when your competitor launches an attack on you. Unleash your lethal weapon only when absolutely required – let’s learn from our Snakes.

Also we should learn how to do dry bites. Many a times we need to decoy attacks and confuse and scare the competitors and not really waste a lot of money effort on launching a full fledge attack when not required [even elephants does a mock attack most of the times before deciding to launching a full attack or charge, what they call – this is for another day for another lesson]

Further Reads:

Business lessons from our Wildlife – Lesson #1 – Baya Weaver Bird

How mongoose attacks a snake, a business lesson is hidden inside, lesson #3

Tips & Tricks from our Wildlife in the Era of Killer Competition

Mother Giraffe kicks their newborn & Why? Business lessons from our Wildlife, #2

How to price your product? let’s learn a business lesson from Paper Wasps (#4)

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