Do it your way - the way no one else can!

So what does it really take to be successful in business today? Well you could have a lot of answers to that question and to be honest with you and they would probably all be right. In our opinion what we think you need above all other things in order to really succeed in business today is an authentic sales experience for your customers.

Think for a moment about what an authentic experience for your customers is and what good it could do for your business? First of all an authentic experience means it is original to your business. An experience that regardless of the number of competitors you have what the customer gets when working with your business cannot be duplicated, it is different and superior.

You see the nature of today's customer is to shop around, especially if there are multiple choices in your market. The increased competition and the increased savvy and expectations of the consumer today is causing all industries to evolve themselves in order to capture more of these shopping consumer than the other guy. What this means is that less and less is the first time closing ratio an important performance indicator of sales effectiveness. Because of that in today's economy what matters is most is hitting your budget, not a closing ratio. That means that you could have a 90% closing ratio but if you do not hit budget it does not matter, so why use it as a measure of sales effectiveness?

Let me explain, no company closes 100% of their sales and depending on how honest you want to be about your stats, it is usually right around 30-60%. This means, that besides the customers that buy right away there are a lot that do not, in some cases 40-70% of them. So what is important now a days is how to make sure that the overwhelming majority of all the perspective customers who visit or visited your business, end up buying from you in due time. Meaning regardless of whether they buy today, next month, or in 2 months, your business will be their business of choice.

The only way to cause this to happen and to constantly hit your budgeted numbers is to make the experience "authentic" for each and everyone of your customers. Now I can't tell you how to do that in your business and your market but I can tell you it will impact your success dramatically if you do it right. The better you become about distinguishing your self from the competition on the correct levels, the better of you and your business will be.

2 things you have to remember

1. You have to earn the right to be called authentic and that only comes through customer experiences
2. Every thing that sells well in today's world from software to cars can be duplicated if it is that good. The only thing that cannot be duplicated is the authentic experience you give your customer and that is why it can give you such a distinct advantage in your market if you can create it. The customer just can not get it at any other business.

You see many companies will talk of their "authenticity" and even list it as a competitive advantage because they understand that it does hold immense power once created. However the overwhelming majority of these companies create an experience through their advertising alone and they then hope that it will be enough to carry them. This means they believe they can either fool the consumer or they are just fooling themselves.

In sales true authenticity allows the customer to feel special and that they are being treated genuinely, regardless of whether they are being sold widgets or Ferrari's. Customers need to be drawn to an environment then presented and closed in the same fashion consistently, with care and respect. Only then once those customers feel that they are being treated correctly and differently will a particular business become labeled as an "out of the ordinarily" well run business or in other words authentic.

But being authentic is much, much, harder than not being authentic and quite frankly the willingness to pay the costs of being authentic is what will separate the great companies from all the others. Every business has a choice. It can take a lot of work and create that experience for the customer, build that relationship and genuinely care for them OR a business can just settle in to being an also ran, be happy each year to just be "good enough". To me the better choice is obvious and the effort required to get to that authentic experience is well worth it.

Dale and Ben Midgley
Co-Founders
The Golden Circle of Business©