The Competitive Advantage

March 20, 2018

Stop Using Content Marketing to Sell

I’ve been a subscriber to INC. magazine for years. I take away a nugget or two from every issue. In this most recent March/April issue, I started to read an article about a concept called the “active office.” It looked interesting.

The article began with what appeared to be an interview with the CEO of VariDesk, a manufacturer of sit/stand workstations. As I read further, I realized it wasn’t an article, but a well-written sales pitch and ‘advertorial.’ At the top of the page was the tiny header, “Branded Content.” And right next to the article was a full-page VariDesk ad.

It really angered me (both VariDesk and INC.)… trying to hide their advertising under the guise of editorial content, even designing the page so that it looked like a standard article. Now, whenever I read any article in any magazine, I look for the “Branded Content” header at the top of the page. Kind of sad, huh?

It was the perfect example of a lesson we share with all of our clients and emphasize during conference presentations…  Stop using content marketing to sell!

March 13, 2018

8 Ways to Get Marketing and Sales to Work Together

The Marketing and Sales functions are two parts of the same engine – the business development engine – and yet, in too many organizations, they operate in very distinct silos, each pointing fingers at one another for not working as a team and, ultimately, blaming each other when revenue goals are not hit.

But when Marketing and Sales work in unison, each supporting one another and taking advantage of what the other has to offer, both functions can achieve new levels of success. Here are 8 proven ways to get these two critical functions to work together…

March 6, 2018

Customer Service Excellence: A Real-World Lesson

I had a memorable customer service experience last week… from a company I didn’t think was capable of it.

Our firm’s email is based on the Gmail platform. On Friday, I received my monthly email invoice from Google and noticed what I thought was a discrepancy. So, I decided to send an email to Google Support to see if they could provide an answer.

I sent an email using their support system and within a couple of minutes, received the robo-response, “This is an automated email from Google Cloud Support. Case #15164139 has been created or updated.” Kinda what I thought would happen… maybe I’ll hear back from the goliath in 3 or 4 days.

And here’s where the story gets interesting. Scratch that… here’s where the story gets remarkable!

February 20, 2018

It’s Time for Revised Thinking: The New Marketing Funnel

Guest post by: Whitney Duprey, Marketing Account Manager, Harpeth Marketing

I’ve never really liked the “Marketing Funnel”. There, I said it. My name is Whitney, I’m a marketer, and I don’t like the marketing funnel.

Wow, it feels good to get that off my chest!

Now, let me clarify. I think that the marketing funnel, in its current iteration, does a good job of depicting and helping marketers visualize the sales process and how a lead becomes a customer. You have leads coming in at the top of the funnel, and as they progress through the buyer’s journey, some “fall out” and decide not to purchase with you, while others make it to the end of the funnel and then become customers (yay!).

February 14, 2018

Do you celebrate your successes?

I went to a party last night. It was the one-year anniversary of the opening of a small business – the place where I get my hair cut. Lots of food & beverages, nice decorations, live music (it is Nashville, after all). It was great!

And it got me to thinking… do we (as businesses and business owners) do enough celebrating of our important moments? Do we recognize our employees and their achievements? Do we boast (a little) about our successes?

Think about all the things we have to celebrate as businesses…

January 26, 2018

How to Sell to Market Research Buyers, Part 2

This is the second in a monthly series of articles based on interviews with corporate research and insights professionals from a variety of Fortune 5000 corporations. In this series, we’ll explore the best ways for you to connect with market research buyers during the buying & selling process.

In last month’s post, we interviewed Kristin DeGraff, Senior Manager, Consumer Insights for Constellation Brands. This month, our guest is Richard Tanner, Customer Insights Manager/Product Marketing at CareerBuilder.

January 16, 2018

3 Simple Sales Tests to Use When Hiring a New Rep

We’ve all seen that scene at the end of the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, where Leonardo DiCaprio‘s character is presenting a sales training workshop and asks a few of the attendees to, “Sell me this pen.”

Are sales tests like that a good idea when recruiting and hiring a sales rep in the market research industry?

A test like that? Probably not. It’s a bit contrived, unrealistic and not in any way tied to your business. However, because so much of the future success of your firm will be tied to this new sales rep, some testing before you make them a job offer is entirely in order.

January 9, 2018

Want Effective New Year’s Resolutions? Start by Fixing Your Problems.

Well, here we are… at the start of another calendar year. [By the way, Happy New Year to you and yours!] And like most years, with our annual New Year’s Resolutions, we think about what we can do to improve our lives – both personally and professionally – in the coming months. I’ll leave the ‘lose weight’ and ‘quit smoking’ type of resolutions to you and focus this post on a few things related to your business.

Since 99.99% of us want to grow our business in 2018, I want to suggest a different way to go about creating your resolutions… one that can truly have an impact on the growth of your firm: start by fixing your problems!