Monopoly Rules : How to Find, Capture, and Control the Most Lucrative Markets in Any Business

“Competition is the bane of the free enterprise system.” —Anonymous business mogul

What people on the front lines—making, marketing, and selling products and services—really want is to be alone in the marketplace, to have a space that they own for a long enough period of time so they can make some real money. In this short, powerful book, Milind Lele shows you how.

Conventional wisdom attributes winning to having the best products at the lowest prices, a great brand, superior management, and the lowest overhead. All are obviously of great importance, but in actuality anyone can achieve them. Dr. Lele shows that winning comes from focusing on these monopoly rules:

• What patch of open market space does this business own—or could it own?

• Is the space really open or is it wishful thinking?

• Are there enough customers whose needs are not being met and are they willing to spend money to have those needs met?

• How long will this space remain open and why?

• What do you have to do to capture it and wall it off?

• When will the party end and what do we do next?

For example, for many coffee lovers there is no one but Starbucks. The moment people found out what coffee could, and should, taste like it was as if a giant lightbulb went off inside their heads—and Starbucks had a monopoly. The best monopoly opportunities are situational, often soft and intangible. They’re segments, not the mass market, and often in the customer’s mind. For the customer there is no one but you, since what you provide can’t be easily copied, duplicated, or ripped off.

Monopoly Rules couldn’t come at a better time, as an almost perfect storm seems to be hitting every business. Customers are changing and the homogenous mass market has gone the way of the nickel soda. Now the game is winning market segments. In this world, Monopoly Rules provides a new way to think and take action and stay ahead of the game.

Also available as an eBook

Milind M. Lele is the managing director of SLC Consultants, Inc., a strategy consulting firm based in Chicago, Illinois. He was adjunct professor of strategy and marketing at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business for more than eighteen years and presently teaches in Chicago GSB’s executive education programs all over the world. He obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has published widely, including articles in Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review and two books, The Customer Is Key and Creating Strategic Leverage.