The Competitive Advantage

October 8, 2024

Fish Where the Fish Are… How Sales is Like My Favorite Hobby

For those of you who know me, you know that one of my hobbies/passions is fishing. There’s nothing quite like standing in a cool stream, water flowing around your legs (washing away your stress) with a nice smallmouth bass on the end of the line. My happy place!

As I was standing in the Harpeth River recently – yes, that’s why I named our firm as I did – it dawned on me that sales is a lot like fishing. Let me explain…

September 25, 2024

Stop Pretending You’re a Specialist!

At the Insights Associations’ Corporate Researchers Conference last week (a really excellent event, by the way), I sat in on a panel discussion with the CEOs from four of the largest research agencies in the world.

I was listening intently as they were describing their firms, when one of the CEOs said, and I quote, “We specialize in a wide variety of solutions!” Huh? Wait a minute… that makes absolutely no sense! If you’re a ‘specialist,’ your firm has a focus on one or two key things… a methodology or an application or a particular industry or market. But more than a few… and you’re a ‘generalist.’

September 3, 2024

Get Out From Behind Your Desk… In Person Selling is More Effective

Last summer, I posted several times on LinkedIn about a road trip I took – partially to do a little fishing and partially to visit some clients in person. The response I received was nothing short of astounding! Visiting clients in person? You would have thought I was the caveman that discovered fire!

Why is that? Have we become so dependent on technologies like Zoom that the idea of actually sitting down in person with a client has become foreign to us? Are we so reliant on technology that we’ve lost our interpersonal skills?

June 25, 2024

“You’re failing in sales because of the front door.”

My wife and I spent a week at the beach last month and made friends with a couple sitting under the umbrella next to us. We got to know Bill and Nina over a few days and found out that Nina was a former pharmaceutical sales manager… so she and I really hit it off.

During one of our ‘sales discussions,’ she told me about a former sales rep that reported to her who had all of the tools, skills, and personality to be wildly successful… but wasn’t. And as Nina told this rep, “You’re failing because of the front door.”

May 15, 2024

Buyers Don’t Care About Your ‘Sense of Urgency.’

See if any of these sound familiar…

• “I met a potential buyer at a conference last week and we had a really good conversation. So, I can’t understand why isn’t he interested in buying from me today.”
• “The perfect sales prospect downloaded a white paper off of our website yesterday, but she said she doesn’t want a capabilities presentation from us.”
• “I’ve been connected with this prospect on LinkedIn for a month, but they’re showing no interest in becoming a client.”

May 8, 2024

“It’s always feast-or-famine around here!“

If ‘feast-or-famine’ is not the top complaint I hear from business owners, it’s certainly in the top three. And to be honest, it’s their own fault!

Think about it… when you’re busy (the feast), you focus on your clients’ projects. But when they slow down (the famine), it’s only then that you decide to spend some effort on sales and marketing. When that has an impact, business picks up (the next feast)… until it doesn’t any more (the next famine).

And so it goes… an endless cycle of revenue ups and downs, which makes your business difficult to manage and extremely stressful.

April 30, 2024

Bad Salespeople? Maybe You Should Blame the Sales Manager.

It seems like every couple of years, I need to rant about how bad selling is in our industry. I was hoping it would improve over time, but that just ain’t happening.

Here are three real sales stories – all targeted at me – that happened in just the last two weeks:

#1) I attended IIeX a couple of weeks ago, and as I was walking by an exhibitor’s booth, one of the sales reps in the booth literally stepped out in front of me, waved his arms over his head and yelled “Stop!” Really?!

April 22, 2024

Stop Relying on Others for Your Success… Take Charge of Your Business

Creating a Revenue Growth Plan for Independent Consultants and Small Businesses

It’s an interesting dilemma. Most people become independent consultants, or start small shops, so they can focus on research and on doing great work for their clients. They certainly didn’t start their businesses so they could spend their time doing sales and marketing.

And yet—as small-business owners—they absolutely have to do that. If they don’t, who will?