Actually, not just one battle, but a whole series of battles over several centuries.

Battles between the Scots and the English.

Which, with a few notable exceptions, the English almost always won, despite often being seriously outnumbered by their northern counterparts.

Time and again – from the Battle of the Standard in 1138 (fought just two miles from the North Yorkshire market town of Northallerton where UK internet marketer Randy Smith lives) to the Battle of Flodden Field on 9 September 1513 (in which more than a few of my own ancestors met their end) or the Battle of Solway Moss in 1543 just down the road from IMer John Taylor, and finally the Battle of Pinkie in 1547 – a large army of wildly keen Scots would boldly challenge the English in their thousands or tens of thousands – only to be knocked back again and again.

On looking at what happened in many of those battles, I came to the following conclusion:

The English were simply better organised.

Better organisation, better planning, better discipline and control so that the organisation also allowed them to react more flexibly as the situation changed.

They were more cohesive too, and lines of command were clear, so everyone knew who was in charge.

Of course it also helped that, as time went on, the English armies developed superiority in the possession and use of “strategic weapons”, such as the long bow.

Here too, though, effective use of such advantages came down to organisation, planning and control.

And of course, practice.

Training and experience.

Doing it again and again and learning from the doing – what worked well, what went wrong, what could be done better?

Always making improvements and incorporating them in the overall – organisation.

Ironically, reading a recent analysis of the 1916 Battle of the Somme in more modern times, I noticed the lapse of many of the virtues that had previously made them so strong – especially in comparison to their better organised and trained and more cohesive opponents – contributed greatly to the initial losses of the meanwhile British armies in that campaign.

So what’s the lesson for up and coming internet marketers?

Work out for yourself (or better yet, get a mentor who’s already got the experience to help you work it out) what you’re trying to achieve, what you need to do that, and what you need to be doing.

Then get organised, so you have a direction and you follow it consistently, instead of constantly charging wildly at anything that moves.

And take the time to size up the situation when faced with a change of circumstances so you can avoid the traps and seize the opportunities.

Organisation is the key.

Get a plan, work your plan, and revise your plan as you go along if needed, but get organised to begin with so any change to your plan still fits in with the underlying concept of your overall organisation.

That’s where I’m at right now. What about you?