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Two businesses that deal in the same goods and services, in the same territory and with the same clientele, cannot coexist equally. Therefore, market share is a meaningless number unless a competitor defines the market in terms of the differences that separate it from its rivals. The essence of the contest lies in extending the boundary of one's advantage and preventing customers from doing the same. Because market equilibrium can be upset at any time, strategy comes into play. Strategy involves the search for a plan of action that will create and compound competitive advantage--in desperately short time periods.

The best strategy for a company is to create attitudes on the part of its competitors that will cause them to restrain their competition. This "persuasion" depends on emotional and intuitive factors rather than analysis or deduction. Three activities in which emotional and intuitive factors are paramount are negotiation, mutual self-restraint or cooperation, and the inhibition of aggressive competitors.