Growers and Tenders, Alphas and Betas
Choosing the Right Personalities to Grow Your Business
Many years ago, I came up with what I believe may be one of the better insights into the question of how entrepreneurial businesses grow.
My thesis was that there are basically two kinds of business leaders – those that have the personalities and skills to start and grow small businesses, and those that have the personalities and skills to manage businesses once they become large.
I named the first type “Growers” and the second type “Tenders.”
A new concept I’ve come up is that there is another way to describe executive leadership styles – one that is related to Growers and Tenders, but only indirectly.
The idea is that there are two distinct kinds of managers: Alphas and Betas.
Alpha managers are just what you’d think – confident, commanding, and assertive, sometimes to the point of coming across as overbearing.
Beta managers are in many ways the opposite – careful, cooperative, and agreeable, sometimes to the point of being overly compliant.
Alpha managers pursue objectives forthrightly and deliberately. They lead with confidence in the value of the goal in order to motivate their colleagues and subordinates to work confidently, too. And they do that even when their own confidence is limited.
Beta managers pursue objectives cautiously, seeking feedback from their colleagues and subordinates to achieve a common consensus about the worthiness of the goal (even if it is a company mandate) and the best strategy to achieve it.
Alpha managers lead like warriors. Beta managers lead like den mothers.
Now here’s the interesting thing about the difference between Growers/Tenders and Alphas/Betas. Although they generally overlap in terms of attitude, work ethic, and leadership style, the overlap is not 100%.
Growers are all Alphas because the psychological characteristics of Growers are 100% Alpha. Tenders, however, can be Alphas or Betas – and some tending roles are better handled by Alphas, while others are better handled by Betas.
The most obvious example of a tending role that is better handled by a Beta is the executive assistant – especially the assistant to an Alpha Grower.
The reason for that is simple. An Alpha Grower cannot function well if he is not supported by a Beta Tender to attend to the disorder that inevitably follows when he moves ahead with his mission, unconcerned with the operational and moral debris that almost always comes from the changes he is rapidly and determinedly making.
What cannot work ever in an entrepreneurial business, or even a mature company determined to achieve further growth, is a Beta executive in any department that is a part of any of the business’s revenue generating functions. That would include COOs and directors of departments engaged in product development, sales, and marketing. Because despite their natural ability to solve problems and boost morale, Betas do not have the harder leadership skills required to make a business grow.
What they do have is the ability to make their boss feel like everything is moving ahead in a positive direction – to soothe the fears of the founder/CEO who is concerned about the lack of growth and convince him that no changes are necessary.
What’s even worse for founders/CEOs who have Beta executives reporting to them in growth-oriented positions is that a Beta executive will almost never hire an Alpha executive for any job, including a growth job, because Betas see Alphas as inherently dangerous and destructive.
The takeaway: For management positions that are not directly involved in product or revenue growth, Betas may be appropriate. But to lead departments whose function is to support growth, only Alphas should be chosen.
Want to Grow Your Company’s Revenues?
It’s Not Complicated
It must have been 30 years ago when I heard Jay Abraham tell a room full of young entrepreneurs, “There are basically only three ways to grow your business. You can increase the base of your customers. You can increase the average number of purchases your customers make. And you can sell them products at higher prices.”
I remember thinking at the time, “Only three ways? That’s too simple. It can’t possibly be right.” But I’ve thought about it at least a hundred times in all the years that followed, in countless brainstorming sessions on that very topic, and I never discovered another way.
This particular bit of advice has been very useful to me whenever I was starting a new business about which I had no significant experience. It has also been helpful when I’ve been consulting with entrepreneurs looking for ways to grow their new businesses.
So why doesn’t every entrepreneur take advantage of these revenue-building strategies? Because, as easy as they are to implement, most entrepreneurs aren’t even aware that they exist.
In future issues, I’ll give you some examples of how you can put each of these strategies to work for you to see your revenues double, triple, or even quadruple in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Three Universal Marketing Truths
1. The customer most likely to buy a product or service is one who has bought similar products or services in the past.
2. The best time to make that second sale is soon after or in some cases immediately after the customer made his first purchase.
3. To achieve the highest percentage of conversions on that second sale, price the second product at two to three times greater than the price the customer paid for the first one.
