When David slew Goliath in the open field separating the armies of Israel and Philistine he didn't walk into the fight empty handed. Prior to engaging the behemoth in battle he collected five smooth stone from the river to do battle with. In his mind he knew he needed only one, his accuracy was astounding and this wasn't his first encounter with a larger foe, but he wasn't foolish either, he needed an arsenal just in case. David made sure he had a war chest.

When you look at the business world and all the businesses there are most are David’s fighting against the select Goliaths. Standard and Poor lists its top 500, but in 2000 there were over 25 million businesses, quite a great divide. So how do you compete against these mammoth corporations? Simple you build a war chest. While most corporation build theirs buy stock piling cash, and have the ability to issue bonds and equity to potential investors to raise capital necessary to expand, most small to medium sized businesses lack the channels to find hordes of cash. We have to make a trip to the brook and gather our choice ammunition.

Cash flow is a touchy subject for most businesses, smoothing inflows through the year may be a near impossible task, but gathering a reserve of cash and opening other channels of opportunity are not completely impossible. Cash for expansion can be acquired by leveraging the equity in the business, seeking open lines of credit, and factoring receivable for a percentage of the total amount if necessary. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to stockpile a decent amount of cash, but you may fall short of the millions in cash larger corporations can have at there disposal, so there must be another way.

Human capital is overlooked sometimes as a means of adding to your war chest. Selecting highly talented staff members, training them, and retaining them are means to building the chest. Adding responsibility, title, incentives, flex hours, and to some extent extending the boundaries of decision making and implementation can allow you to retain quality talent in your talent pool. Believe it or not money isn’t always the answer to solving the employee problems, some people are willing to work harder for less if you are willing to cater your total compensation package to what motivates them. Wharton, Stanford, Princeton and Harvard may have name recognition, but there are many diamonds in the rough that can think and act in multiple directions that may not have the pedigree of an Ivy League school.

Intangibles are another form of arsenal that you can load up with to help topple the giants of industry. They come in many forms, copyrights, trademarks, patents, and proprietary technology. Building a war chest of intangibles and intellectual property could be the battering rams to breakdown the barriers to entry. When you become the only channel by which an industry must go through to achieve the benefits your intellectual property offers it turns to tides of battle to your favor.

In general the smaller you are the quicker you are. Your small company can adapt maneuver, and change direction faster then the larger breed. This will allow you to enter new markets quicker, bring designs to prototype quicker, and flow with the trends and directions of commerce much easier then other might. A speed boat can avoid the icebergs, and change course much easier and quicker then an ocean liner can. This can be used to your advantage if you can strategically put it to its best use.

Quality is often an overlooked aspect of competition. Quality tends to dwindle the larger a company becomes, and all too often small business try to compete on price and every time they will fail. Sometimes price never enters into the mind of the customer or client. The convenience, quality and overall experience of a product or service outweigh the price tag associated with it. When is the last time you decided to for go a cup of coffee at your local coffee shop because it ran you $3.50 a cup? For three times that amount you could have gone to the grocery store bought the ingredients and produced at home twenty cups of coffee. It was the quality, convenience, and experience you received that keeps you coming back, regardless of the how much it costs.

David fought Goliath with the tools he was most comfortable and familiar with; he bested him with his own war chest of five stones. Listed above are five stones you can put into you chest. It is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a start. Fighting a battle on your terms and in conditions you feel comfortable in will produce better results, and when executed to perfection, your war chest can bring down the mightiest of adversaries.