Someone asked me the other day why I have written so few articles this year.  The reason is simple:  I’ve been working inside a company to grow it.  Despite this terrified, hide-your-money-in-a-pillowcase economy, by the end of the year we expect to be at or near our very aggressive growth target that we set a year and a half ago.

Many persons watching us wonder how we can do that.  It looks as though we are selling essentially the same thing as most of our competitors, yet we get between 50% and 100% more for it.  So, here’s the secret…

We are working our tails off to get there.  We have made sure we understand exactly what people REALLY want to buy in our category (not the “things” they want to buy, but rather the “experience” they want before, during, and after the sale), and we have made sure we are not only providing those things, but also helping them discover how critical it is for their own personal satisfaction and fulfillment that they get nothing less than that.

Sound familiar?  It should.  It’s the Alpha model.

Has this been easy?  Absolutely not.  The most difficult thing has been getting everyone on the team to understand and buy into this model.  Actual delivery and communications have been been relatively easy.  Getting everyone to understand that this is not about them, but rather about the customer’s experience, has been the real battle.

What makes this even better is that this company is in what most people consider to be a “commodity” industry.  Actually, most companies are… not because what they sell is actually a commodity, but rather because they and all of their competitors have allowed purchasers to believe that it is.  They have allowed people to believe that it’s easy to deliver what you deliver and that what everyone in your category sells is essentially the same.

That is never true.  At the core level, the real defining difference between you and your competitors has to be you.  If they buy from anyone else, they don’t get YOU.  That can (and should) mean not just you individually, but your company, your installers, your service people, your telephone people, your customer service reps, your salespersons, your packaging,… everything and everyone in your company.  Why? Because each has been created or trained to represent the pinnacle of what can be had by buying something in your category.

When someone buys from your company, the should be buying something they never thought they would be able to get:

  1. freedom from worry about they quality of the product, its installation, training to use it, and/or its performance,
  2. comfort in knowing that if anything goes wrong (or if you don’t achieve expected results), you will be there to make it absolutely right, and
  3. fulfillment in knowing that others will wonder how they were smart enough to find the best possible option out of all the not quite good enough options.

It’s not the economy that’s holding you back.  It’s you and how you run your company and approach the marketplace.  If you aren’t using the Alpha model to sell in this economy, then you are losing thousands or millions of dollars every day.

Special Limited-time Offer

If that’s you and you are tired of blaming the economy or price-sensitive customers on your poor performance, here’s a special offer:  give me a call or email me, and I will personally send you a free article on how you can turn that around in the next 60 days. No charge.  No commitment.  Just real, immediately usable answers that will change the way you run your business (or sell customers) so that you can be selling at higher prices, getting more completely satisfied customers, and reaping greater profits than ever before.

I’ve hidden this offer deep in this post, because I only want to help people who are willing to work for it.  It’s never easy to become the Alpha, but this special article will allow you to understand how to immediately put your company on the track to becoming an Alpha.  Contact me today, because I have only printed a limited quantity of this special article.  Once they run out, I won’t reprint it again.

Wes Ball is president of The Ball Group.  He is also author of The Alpha Factor, available here or through on-line bookstores.  Wes speaks around the country to large groups of business owners and managers who want to start growing their sales and profit sustainably without discounting or promotion… no matter what the economy is doing.  You can reach Wes at 717.627.0405 or through his email at w.ball@ballgroup.com.