BUSINESS KILLING MISTAKES #10 – YOUR COMPANY IS SPECIAL. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE’S

Want to know how to turn your good business into a great company making a fortune – as fast as possible? Differentiate – it’s that easy. 

ONLY WHEN YOUR BUSINESS IS PERCEIVED AS SPECIAL DO THINGS CHANGE

There are millions of business leaders around the world whose companies offer great products and services, and they are making a solid living for themselves and their employees. However, a percentage of those owners, and maybe you, are saying, “Eking out a living isn’t good enough! How do I turn my good business into a fast-growth company and make a ton of money for myself and my employees doing it?” 

In this article, I will share with you one of the most powerful and proven strategies we use in our programs to start and accelerate our client’s business transformation to maximize growth and optimize profitability, sometimes in days. Read this article and share it with your employees because you CANNOT make this transformation on your own – it takes everyone in your company. And that’s fine because I know you will share that newfound wealth with all who helped. 

BUSINESS KILLING MISTAKE – EVERY BUSINESS IS SPECIAL JUST LIKE YOURS

You wouldn’t believe how many people have told me, “Our business is special”, or “You have to get inside our business to understand how we do things differently.” Really? Does your business offer products and services or both? Does your business have to convert contacts into clients? Does your business have to market, sell, delivery, and support your offerings (either directly or indirectly)? 

There are essential parts of a business that are immutable. However, it’s “how” you execute those parts that determine what really does make your business unique or special and why prospects should care. However, when a buyer can’t quickly, easily, or discernably distinguish clear and separating reasons to buy – value, benefits, and risk, etc. – they default to two decision categories.

The first category is the “no decision.” Half the prospects in your pipeline, if you are “not perceived as special” are with prospects who can’t or won’t make a decision – and they won’t budge. 

The second category means the buyer will make a decision; however, it will be based on two flawed reasons. First, they will buy on price – the lowest. Have you ever met anyone who was proud they paid the highest price? Even people buying in auctions are trying to pay the least. The second decision path is they buy on brand name. If price isn’t a differentiator or they are nervous, then their decision defaults to “what is the safest choice?” “Safe” meaning lowest risk, big brand name, been around a long time, or has strong company viability. 

WHY do leaders make this mistake? 

There are two big reasons that business leaders make the mistake of being a “you’re special just like everyone else” company. First, as I detailed in the book, most entrepreneurs wrongly focus on just starting, running, and growing a business – hoping for success. Even if they call themselves “entrepreneurs.” Our research and experience working with thousands of them prove that only a small percentage are “entrepreneur- ial.” Meaning they actually think, behave, and execute radically DIFFERENTLY using high-spectrum entrepreneurial traits. You can read this in detail in Chapter 1 – New Will Different Way to understand these principles. 

Second, businesses are started and become stuck in the “why don’t prospects see we’re special” because it’s hard to break out and change. I can’t tell you how many new clients in our programs – even some in the last few weeks – have said, “Learning to think and act differently to truly differentiate is harder than starting and running my business.”

I remind them that “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.” 

WHAT is the impact of being “NOT PERCEIVED AS SPECIAL”

Being a “yes we are special, but people can’t see it” company is the reason that 99% of all businesses, entrepreneurs, and even large companies struggle with money challenges. Too many business owners and real entrepreneurs (they’re not the same) have little cash on hand, inconsistent cash flow, no working capital, and growing receivables. 

Being an “I believe we are special but don’t prove it” company means you will be competing, trying to win, or even winning on dollars or price. Only a small percentage of companies are the “giants” or well-known brands where buyers will pay a premium to cover their risks. All the other firms end up fighting for bottom-of-the-barrel, “low-budget buyers.” 

When buyers can’t differentiate or separate your value from others, then two terrible things become ingrained in your culture, like a cold that won’t go away. 

First, your win-strategy starts to become lowering your prices. Yes, a race to becoming a non-profit. And second, there are no monies to invest in effective marketing and selling to explain how you are different. Your business becomes trapped in a never-ending, no-to-low profit, death cycle. You and your team might be killing yourself just to survive.

If what I just described was relatable and quite painful, then good – Time to change! 

CHANGE – WHAT SHOULD YOU DO INSTEAD

The secret to breaking out of the “why don’t people see we are special,” bad business ditch is for you and your team to learn to do two things. First, understand and frame the fundamental marketplace problem (FMP, Chapter 2) where you have decided to compete. I can’t stress how the “framing” of this is so critical, just as the “set up” is more important than the punchline and how comedians make big money. 

The next step is to then look at your business model. What is unique or different about your model that is not offered by other companies? AND (supercritical) is being perceived as delivering differentiating value by your target market, your Perfect Client Profile (PCP Chapter 5). 

One of our clients who we helped make this transition recently said, “It’s so great to have tripled our sales win rates and not be lowering our prices to ‘buy new business.’ ”

SUMMARY – WHAT YOU MUST KNOW

If your business is stuck with slow sales, weak growth, or low profitability, your company might be suffering from the “no one knows we’re special” disease, which afflicts 98% of all companies. This is not only bad for you but also frustrating for buyers and the marketplace. 

Know this. Buyers are starving for clear, simple, and defendable reasons to buy your offering versus someone else’s. However, you must do the hard work to show, prove, and validate the differentiators. If you leave that up to your prospects, they will almost always get it wrong. But it’s not because they are stupid; it’s because they are time-starved and are stressed to make a decision right now if they are in pain. 

ACTION AND URGENCY

You have already read above (and hopefully in the book) the strategic steps necessary to transform your “yes we are special” business into a highly successful profit-generating company, so to get started, do these steps to accelerate your progress:

1. Form a team in your company of leaders, stakeholders, and individual performers;
2. Discuss and analyze how, where, and why you might or are perceived as a “like everyone else” company.
3. Read through the book Entrepreneur To Millionaire to guide your transition from “we think we are special but buyers don’t see it” to “Own The Market;”
4. Contact us to find out where you are stuck or why you can’t make the transition;
5. Don’t try to solve this by adding more products or services or spending more on marketing or sales. That does not address the root cause and solve these problems but only burns more profits.

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AUTHOR BACKGROUND

Kent Billingsley is the founder and president of the Revenue Growth® Company, LLC (TRGC). He is a published author, international keynote speaker, and business transformation expert. He has become America’s Revenue Growth® Architect by helping thousands of entrepreneurs and CEOs (representing over a million employees) generate several billion in new sales, as well as tens of billions in new revenue and profits for large corporations. He has personally designed, built, transformed, and turbocharged several thousand organizations in 36 countries. Over the last 20 years, his proprietary content and trademarked programs have helped thousands of entrepreneurs and employees become millionaires and multimillionaires by “creating wealth” inside their companies. He can be reached at [email protected].