The Competitive Advantage

February 6, 2019

Self-Funded Research… an Amazing Marketing Tool!

The following post is from an interview with Anne Beall, PhD, Founder of Beall Research in Chicago.

Henke: Anne, let me get this straight… you designed, implemented, managed, measured, reported on and paid for a full-blown research study as a marketing strategy?

Beall: Not quite. It was actually two studies! Seriously… yes, we did create and execute a full study for our own purposes – partially to support our marketing efforts and also to help us study and bring to market a new model around brands and emotions.

Henke: Where does an idea like this come from? Many firms that I’m familiar with would wait to find a paying client to help underwrite something like that.

January 29, 2019

Human-to-Human… The New Old Way to Be Successful!

Texting, social media and email are not enough to build real working relationships.

Last week, I participated in the Insights Association’s CEO Summit in Miami… a sold-out industry event attended by nearly 100 C-level executives from throughout our industry. And during the three days, one over-arching theme became crystal clear… while we all work in a B2B environment, we all still live in a Human-to-Human (H2H) world. That’s not just me saying that… everyone I talked with about that idea at the Summit whole-heartedly agreed.

January 23, 2019

Don’t Treat Your 2019 Revenue Goal Like Your New Year’s Resolution!

Raise your hand if your New Year’s resolution is to “lose weight!” It is, by far, the most common option for that annual tradition of ‘personal goal setting.’

While I don’t know the actual statistics, I’ll bet well over 90% of those with that goal don’t achieve it. Maybe 95%!  And there’s a pretty simple reason why that happens…

You can’t just ‘lose weight.’ You can’t will it to happen. You can’t stand in front of the mirror and hope that the fat will go away.

January 15, 2019

I’ve Got an Accountability Partner… and You Should, Too

One of the primary responsibilities of a business owner is ‘accountability’… to make sure our employees are doing their jobs and making progress toward company goals. We hold our project teams accountable by getting feedback from clients. We hold salespeople accountable by monitoring selling activity and – of course – tracking revenue. We hold our financial team accountable by requiring timely completion of P&Ls, balance sheets and AP/AR reports.

But who holds us – the owners – accountable?

January 8, 2019

Marketing & Sales for ‘Old’ Business Owners, Part 5

“I don’t have the money!”

Edging out “I don’t have the time!” as the primary reason ‘old’ business owners are not actively engaged in marketing & sales is “I don’t have the money!” Or “it’s too expensive.” Or some other money-related ‘excuse’ – yes, it really is an excuse!

For these owners, I have a few thoughts…

January 1, 2019

Marketing & Sales for ‘Old’ Business Owners, Part 4

“I don’t have the time!”

After “I don’t have the money!”, the second most common excuse I hear from ‘oldsters’ like me for not engaging in any real marketing & sales efforts is “I don’t have the time!”.

To that, I have two responses:

#1. Bullsh**! The reason you don’t “have the time” is because you’re not “making the time”… and the reason you’re not “making the time” is because it’s not a “priority” for you.

It’s that simple.

December 22, 2018

The Top 9 Marketing & Sales Blog Posts from 2018

Over the past 6 1/2 years, we’ve published more than 350 articles in this blog… with close to 50 of them in 2018. And, not surprisingly, some enjoy much higher readership than others. So, in case you missed them earlier this year, listed below are the most widely-read blog posts from 2018. Enjoy!

December 18, 2018

Marketing & Sales for ‘Old’ Business Owners, Part 3

“Sales doesn’t work for a company like ours.”

Or “Sales doesn’t work in our industry” or any number of other anti-sales statements. Why is it that so many “old” business owners say those kinds of things? Why is there such a bias against “sales” people?

I think their responses are driven by one of three things: