Weak entrepreneurs enrage me. I glare at those shivering fools who harrumph a sigh of despair upon hearing a TV economist gloomily prophesize anemic 2 percent average growth. Sheesh!

If that’s you, do us all a favor and turn your business license in to the nearest "Imminent Failure Office." Then, from the sidelines, applaud those bold, nimble, and aggressive operators who ignore such stats and divine their own staggering growth charts.

Worthy entrepreneurs never cower in the shadows. They never wait for “the economy” to resurrect their businesses. They ignore dire tones. They embrace the attack. They outmaneuver the most earnest combatants—and abscond market share from tired, lazy competitors.

Sounds deliciously audacious, right? But in practice, how does one do that?

The answer is: You accede that the only way to flourish in a flat—or declining market—is to take business away from languid, petrified, soon-to-be-irrelevant opponents. With a finite market and no national organic growth on the skyline, there is simply no other way to beat the averages than to take share away from them.

The mechanics of such a blueprint are so elegant in their simplicity that no code-cracking is required. Every skeleton in your competitors’ closet is hiding in plain sight. Action is your only marching order.

For starters, three is a good number.

1. Engage in corporate espionage. I’m serious: Spying on your competitors is paramount to your success. Reconnaissance must be deployed to accurately assess their strengths and expose their weaknesses. This “intel” will decree the steps in your tactical assault. (Don’t you love the equable drama of all this?) By the way, the kind of spying I’m talking about is quite legal—and laughingly free. Because you have been blessed with torrential access to the World Wide Web, you can stealthily invigilate your competitors’ vast public conversations. Become a Facebook friend and you’ll absorb their daily posts and customer commentary. Follow their tweets and eavesdrop on who’s complaining—and who is celebrating. Subscribe to their RSS feeds and you will seize their latest pronouncement the millisecond it’s released. Get assigned to their press releases to be apprised of any hot-off-the-press market or personnel developments. Sign up for free Google Alerts and you will be notified any time their name appears on the Web. And exploit Addictomatic.com by typing in the names of your competitors. You will witness what’s being alleged about them in the aggregate blogosphere. Once you know your competitors’ Achilles' heel, you’ll have the steam to plot your market-share attacks.