Matter ─ Move Beyond the Competition, Create More Value, and Become the Obvious Choice

Going head-to-head with competitors is a recipe for slow growth and low margins. There’s a way to dobetter.

DPR Construction is a $2.5 billion company operating in the fiercely competitive and highly commoditized construction industry. Unlike most of its peers, it has achieved years of spectacular growth and has currently reached number ten on Fortune’s Best Places to Work” list. How did it accomplish this? By being better.

Back when DPR was small and relatively unknown, the company launched itself ahead of the pack by becoming an expert in emerging customer needs like digital infrastructure, energy efficiency, and green materials. Instead of waiting for clients to come to it with problems, DPR introduced clients to solutions they didn’t even know they wanted. The strategy paid off so well that when Apple decided it would build its futuristic head office in Silicon Valley, DPR was its obvious choice.

Matter, the fruit of ChangeLabs Founder and President Peter Sheahan’s three-year research project, identifies dozens of companies that became the obvious choice in crowded markets. These companies transcended disruption by proactively rethinking their industries and developing new business models. Showing remarkable curiosity, creativity, courage, and generosity, they heldthemselves accountable for taking customers on a journey toward the future. They became beacons of innovation and collaboration, elevating their business models, their relationshipsand inevitably, their results.

Better organizations are remarkably diverse. From high-profile brands like Adobe and Nike, to boutiques like Lang Marketing and BlueShore Financial, organizations of all shapes and sizes have utilized the forward-looking strategies described in this book with dramatic results: more revenue, more sustainability, bigger profit margins, and greater market share.Matter offers illustrative case studies and a tactical framework that will become your blueprint for making your organizations ever better.

It’s time to see yourself as a leader, and to invest beyond your four walls. Start the exciting journey and become a business that is stronger, elevated . . . simply, better.

Founder of global consultancy ChangeLabs, Peter Sheahan is known internationally for his innovative business thinking and thought leadership. With staff in 9 cities across 3 countries, he knows firsthand the challenges of growing a business in these rapidly changing times.

Peter has worked with some of the world’s leading brands, including Apple, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Hyundai, IBM, Pfizer, Wells Fargo, and Cardinal Health. He is the author of 3 business books:Flip, Generation Y, and Making it Happen. Peter has delivered more than 2,000 presentations to over 300,000 people in 15 different countries, and he has been named one of the "25 Most Influential Speakers" in the industry by the National Speakers Association. In July 2012, he was inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame, receiving the Council of Peers Award for Excellence (CPAE) lifetime achievement award for speaking excellence.