A Master of One
By Adam Radzik
Marketing & Sales Coach

(Scene: A conversation between Adam Radzik, the sales coach, and Helen, a business owner, that takes place on a park bench.)

Helen: “I am so glad we decided to talk out here. I spend so much of my time indoors, I need the fresh air.”

Adam: “It was an excellent idea. Fresh air clears away the cognitive cobwebs. Tell me, Helen, what goal do you have for your company?”

Helen (smiling): “I want us to be very successful. My father was a very successful doctor. My mother was a top executive in the computer business. My oldest sibling is a physics professor at a fancy university and my sister has sixty-five people working for her all over the world in the investment banking business.”

Adam: “Let me throw out a few ideas for you to think about. In order to be successful, and certainly very successful, you and the people in your company need to distinguish yourselves by mastering something specific and valuable that people are willing to pay for.”

Helen: “But Adam, our business is a commodity. It is very difficult to distinguish yourself when there are dozens of other vendors out there.”

Adam: “Let me tell you a story about a client I had when I first started consulting, about thirty years ago. It was a Midwestern fuel company that sold residential heating oil. They were doing about five million a year. They presented their business to me as being a commodity that could not be improved upon and said there was no way to be better than their competitors. ‘Heating oil is heating oil,’ they said. ‘We all sell the same stuff.’ I commented to the owners that the fuel oil company that was netting a hundred million a year in sales had to be doing some things better. They laughed at my naiveté and told me that I obviously didn’t know their industry. I began to do some research and discovered that their service people often arrived in soiled uniforms and muddy trucks, did not know where the underground fuel tank was located, had limited emergency service availability, did not know enough about their homeowners’ heating units to do preventive maintenance and replace aging units, and never examined energy loss within their customers’ residences. There were additional positive differences. The hundred-million-dollar company proved itself to be a master of customer service in the residential oil service business, and their revenues showed it. The owners of that company eventually sold it to a British company for an enormous sum.”

Helen: “We haven’t thought about our business in that manner.”

Adam: “The companies that demonstrate mastery in a given area often earn three times as much as their competitors.”

Helen: “Ooh, that’s a lot of money!”

Adam: “You bet it is!”

Comedy Corner

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