The Competitive Advantage

June 9, 2020

Marketing & Sales During the Pandemic: Invest or Wait-n-See?

I’ve talked with a lot of business owners in our industry over the past few months, and every firm falls into one of just two buckets… those that are actively investing in marketing & sales during the pandemic and those that are standing pat and taking a wait-and-see stance.

And by ‘invest,’ I don’t necessarily mean money (though a little of that wouldn’t hurt)… I’m talking about a commitment to an active marketing & sales initiative. To spend the time and effort to make it happen… and then to stick with it.

You can easily guess which side I come down on, but not because marketing & sales are the businesses we’re in… but because it really is the smart thing to do.

And here’s why…

May 26, 2020

Is Your Website Helping or Hurting Your Business? Find out here…

OK, let’s be honest… other than putting up a new blog post occasionally, how long has it been since you spent any real time on your website? And looked at it with a critical eye?

In today’s highly-competitive, fast-paced world, if your website isn’t up-to-date, then your firm is falling behind. So, to make sure your website is an asset – and not a liability – here are the four key website elements you need to review:

May 19, 2020

Personal Development: 5 Ways to Make Yourself Better During the Pandemic

Right now, while you’re working from home, you’re not fighting traffic during your daily commute, you’re sitting in on fewer meetings and, unfortunately, things might be quieter with some of your clients. Do you know what that means? It means you’ve got a little extra time on your hands.

And you have three choices as to what you can do with that time. You can do more work. You can do something mindless (like watch reruns on TV and snack on Cheetos) or you can work on something you probably don’t spend enough time working on… yourself! Right now, with those available extra hours, is an ideal time for personal development. And here are 5 ways to make that happen…

May 12, 2020

Do you have a defined sales process? No?! Ignoring it is a HUGE mistake!

Imagine you have responsibility for revenue growth at your firm and you finally decide to pull the trigger and convert a couple of your senior Project Managers to the Seller-Doer role. Congrats!

Now what? Well, one of the items you’ll need to cover in their training is to help them understand your firm’s ‘sales process.’

Sales process?! It’s not a term or a concept used very often in our industry… but it’s critical to your selling success. And here’s why…

May 4, 2020

Selling Success Requires 2 Things… a Good Sales Rep and a Better Sales Manager

8 Keys for Effective Sales Management

I was chatting with an industry colleague this past week and he mentioned he had just repositioned two of his Project Managers into Business Development roles… one as an account manager and one to go after new business.

And then he said something that really surprised me and even made me smile. He said, “This process has made me realize that I’m no sales manager!”

Wow! He is literally the first person in Market Research I have met who has said that. Out loud. Don’t get me wrong… there are a ton of really bad sales managers in our industry – he’s just the first one to admit it.

April 21, 2020

Stop hard selling during the pandemic… use these 9 ‘soft touches’ instead.

I’ve been involved in a number of industry conversations lately around the topic of ‘selling during the pandemic.’ As the uncertainty grows, firms want/need to continue to sell, if only to maintain their business.

For many, however, the inclination is to be too proactive… that is ‘sell harder, sell faster.’ The reality is, though, that the opposite approach will have a much more positive impact.

April 14, 2020

With the ‘new normal,’ is a marketing & sales plan still useful?

Uhhh… no and yes!

As we all know, we’re experiencing an unusual time right now… everything in life – and in business – is changing very rapidly. And the speed of all of those changes is fundamentally impacting the way we conduct business.

One of the many questions these changes are forcing us to answer is, “Do we still need a marketing & sales plan?” Many of us spent so much time at the end of last year planning for how to tackle growth this year… is what we did then still relevant?

April 6, 2020

Stuck-at-home marketing & sales, part 4

Low-cost/no-cost marketing & sales ideas #19-23…

If you’ve been following along the past few weeks (3/18, 3/24, 3/31), we’ve explored 18 different marketing & sales activities you could employ while you’ve got a little extra time on your hands during the pandemic. Here’s a quick rundown: