Business Growth Model: Why Some Companies Thrive While Others Stay Stuck

November 10, 2025

Every successful business growth model answers three questions: How do you get customers? How do you close the sale? And how do you keep them coming back?

Running a building products or home improvement business is a bit like keeping a house in good order. You can’t just fix the roof when it leaks and ignore everything else. You need all the parts working together, plumbing, electrics, heating, or the whole place falls apart.

Growth works the same way. Some companies grow steadily, year after year. Others lurch from busy periods to quiet spells, never quite getting ahead. The difference isn’t luck. It’s a system.

You’ll learn a straightforward business growth model that shows exactly where your business might be stuck, and how to fix it. No business school required.

Why Most Businesses Stay Stuck on the Same Revenue

About twenty years ago, Andrew Scott, who founded Purplex Marketing, noticed something. The agency works with building products, home improvements, and construction companies across the UK and globally, helping them raise their profile, improve their brand, and generate leads. Over hundreds of projects, a pattern emerged.

Successful businesses did three things well. Struggling ones had at least one broken piece.

He called it the Attract, Convert, Fulfil model or ACF for short. Think of it like a three-legged stool. If one leg wobbles, you fall over.

Here’s what each leg does:

• Attract: You bring in a steady flow of good leads, people who actually need what you sell
• Convert: You turn those leads into paying customers
• Fulfil: You do the job so well that customers come back and tell their mates about you

Most businesses focus on one or two of these. Maybe you’re brilliant at doing the work (Fulfil), but the phone doesn’t ring enough (Attract). Or you get plenty of enquiries, but half of them go nowhere (Convert).

The companies that grow? They get all three working at once. And there’s a multiplier: the stronger your brand, the easier all three become. People already trust you before they call. They’re more likely to say yes. And they remember you when it’s time to buy again.

The Part Where Most Marketing Goes Wrong

Let’s say you’ve got the ACF model in your head. You know you need to attract, convert, and fulfil. But how do you actually market your business?

This is where most companies stumble. They throw up a website, run some ads, maybe post on Facebook. But there’s no plan holding it together. Purplex uses strategies across SEO, PPC, and social media to reach target audiences, with journalists creating editorial that raises profiles, shapes perceptions, and builds credibility. But it’s not just about picking channels. It’s about following a sequence that guides people from “never heard of you” to “I’m buying from you again.”

That sequence is called the 5 A’s of Marketing.

The Five Steps That Turn Strangers Into Customers

Here’s the model that works for fabricators, installers, and suppliers across the fenestration and building products industry:

Audience comes first because if you don’t know who you’re talking to, everything else is guesswork. Are you selling to homeowners? Installers? Main contractors? Each one cares about different things.

Attention is where you show up in the right places, Google, trade magazines, and social media, with a message that makes people stop. For example, Newton Waterproofing saw a 54% increase in vetted website leads after Purplex designed a 550-page website combined with SEO, PR, and email marketing.

Authority is proof. Anyone can say they’re good. You need reviews, case studies, and accreditations. Plasloc achieved a 74% increase in leads and reduced cost per lead by 27% through a conversion-focused website, targeted SEO, PPC campaigns, PR, and social media. That’s authority in action.

Action means don’t make people hunt for your phone number or figure out what to do next. Clear calls to action work.

Advocacy is the endgame. When customers recommend you, that’s free marketing. And it’s the most trusted kind.

The Mistake That Kills Momentum

Even if you understand ACF and the 5 A’s, there’s one trap that catches almost everyone: the marketing wave.

Here’s how it goes. Sales slow down. Panic sets in. You launch a marketing push, maybe Google Ads, maybe a mail drop. A few weeks later, the phone starts ringing again. You get busy. Marketing gets shoved to the back burner. Then a few months pass, the work dries up, and you’re back to square one.

It’s reactive. You’re always chasing your tail.

The pattern looks like this:

1. Sales drop
2. Marketing ramps up
3. Leads come in
4. Marketing stops
5. Leads dry up
6. Repeat

The problem? You’re treating marketing like a tap you turn on and off. But Purplex helps companies across the UK and globally raise their profile, improve their brand, and generate leads through integrated campaigns that engage customers at every touchpoint. That means consistent effort, not bursts.

Why Consistency Beats Panic

Think about the businesses you trust. The ones you see everywhere, at trade shows, in the magazines, online, on the back of vans. They didn’t get there by going quiet for six months at a time.

When you market consistently, something interesting happens. Your order book stays full. And when you’re fully booked, you can be choosy. You can turn away the awkward customers who want everything yesterday for half the price. You can focus on the jobs that make you money and don’t give you a headache.

Finance directors worry about wasting money on marketing when they’re already busy. But that’s the point. You market especially when you’re busy, so you never have to scramble again.

How This Applies to Your Business Right Now

Let’s bring this back to the real world. You run a business. Maybe you make windows, fit kitchens, supply cladding, and install doors. Whatever it is, ask yourself:

Attract: Are you getting enough good leads each week, or does it feel like feast or famine?

Convert: When someone enquires, do they usually buy, or do half of them disappear?

Fulfil: Do customers come back? Do they recommend you? Or do you finish the job and never hear from them again?

If any of those feels shaky, that’s your starting point.

Then look at the 5 A’s:

• Do you know exactly who your ideal customer is? (Audience)
• Are you showing up where they look? (Attention)
• Can people see you’re credible? (Authority)
• Is it obvious what they should do next? (Action)
• Are you staying in touch after the sale? (Advocacy)

You don’t have to fix everything at once. Pick the weakest link and start there.

Build the System, Not Just the Campaign

We operate from offices in Weston-super-Mare, near Bristol, and Trafalgar Square in Central London, as part of a marketing, media, and technology group employing over 100 people. Over two decades, we’ve worked with hundreds of businesses in fenestration and building products, applying these exact principles.

The ACF model and the 5 A’s aren’t a theory. They’re a roadmap. When all the pieces work together, attracting the right people, converting them into customers, doing brilliant work, and staying visible, you stop lurching from one crisis to the next.

You build momentum. And momentum is what separates the businesses that grow from the ones that stay stuck.

If your leads have dried up, start with Attract. If people enquire but don’t buy, focus on Convert and Authority. If you’re always hunting for new customers, fix Fulfil and Advocacy.

Keep the Leads Coming and the Business Growing

Growth isn’t magic. It’s a system. And the system has three legs: Attract, Convert, Fulfil. Everything else, your website, your ads, your reviews, slots into one of those three.

The 5 A’s give you the step-by-step: know your audience, grab attention, prove authority, make action easy, and turn customers into advocates. And whatever you do, don’t fall into the marketing wave trap. Market when you’re quiet and when you’re busy.

Because the businesses that grow year on year aren’t the ones with the fanciest brochures or the biggest budgets, they’re the ones that keep all the pieces working, all the time.

If you want to see where your business might be stuck and how to fix it, start by asking which of the three legs feels weakest. Then take one step to shore it up. That’s how you move forward.

Ready to Put These Ideas to Work?

If you’re sitting there thinking, “This makes sense, but where do I actually start?” you’re not alone. Most business owners in the construction and home improvement sectors know they need better marketing. They just don’t have the time or the team to make it happen.

That’s exactly what we do at Purplex. For over 20 years, we’ve helped building product companies, fabricators, installers, and suppliers across the UK and Ireland turn the ACF model and the 5 A’s into real, measurable growth. We work with you to figure out which leg of the stool is wobbly, then fix it, whether that’s attracting more leads, converting enquiries, or keeping customers coming back.

If you’d like to talk through where your business might be stuck and what you can do about it, get in touch. No sales pitch. Just a proper conversation about what’s working, what isn’t, and what comes next.

Call us on 01934 808 132, email grow@purplexmarketing.com, or visit our contact page to book a no-obligation chat.

You Might Also Like to Read

If you found this guide useful, these articles dig deeper into the practical side of growing your business through smarter marketing:

• Construction Marketing Strategy: Practical Guide for 2025 – A step-by-step look at proven tactics that help construction companies attract more customers and build brand visibility in a competitive market.
• Lead Generation: Ultimate Guide to Generating Business Leads – Learn how to build a steady stream of high-quality leads using modern marketing techniques that actually convert.
• Build Your Brand and Boost Your Bottom Line with Effective Marketing – Why the best companies aren’t always the ones with the best products, they’re the ones that master brand marketing.
• Guilty of Riding the Marketing Wave? Here’s How You Can Avoid It – Stop the cycle of reactive marketing and learn how to build consistent, profitable growth instead.

The formula’s there. Now it’s about putting it to work.

This entry was posted in consultancy, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy