The Competitive Advantage

May 6, 2014

Get out from behind your desk!

As I write this, I’m flying home from several days in Southern California, after working with a couple of clients. In both cases, there were just a few people sitting around a table, collaborating and working toward a common goal.  We did some planning, talked strategy, bounced ideas off of each other and, in the end, left with To-Do’s for each of us as we move forward together.

But more importantly… we also shared a meal, laughed, talked about families and discussed summer vacations. It was real human-to-human interaction.

May 4, 2014

11 execution tips to help you exceed client expectations

The three weeks of the NCAA men’s basketball championship tournament are my favorite three weeks of the year, every year. I love college basketball and I love March Madness. There are certain teams and certain coaches that my wife and I always cheer for (or against). Since both of our children went to the University of Tennessee, this year we cheered heavily for the men’s team, who made it to the Sweet 16! And we generally support every SEC school, with the exception of John Calipari and the University of Kentucky Wildcats! But regardless of who’s in and who’s out, we get completely wrapped up in the event every year.

Factor in that a billion of Warren Buffett’s dollars were on the line and this year was even more compelling. But Buffett didn’t need to worry; his money was safe. Not a single bracket made it out of the first weekend intact; there were just too many upsets! It didn’t matter where a team was seeded. It didn’t even matter which big-time coach was guiding them from the sidelines. The only thing that mattered was who executed when it really mattered.

April 30, 2014

Stop making excuses about your [lack of] marketing & sales, Part 3

Do you know the phrase, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse?” Of course, we all do.

Coincidentally, the same rule applies to your business… that is, just because you might not know how to do marketing & sales doesn’t mean you can just ignore them. And you know you can’t. But you’re smart… you run or manage a business… so you have to figure it out – and that’s what this post is about.

April 24, 2014

Stop making excuses about your [lack of] marketing & sales, Part 2

Last week we started a 3-part series on the excuses business owners and managers use to “explain away” their lack of marketing & sales activity (and success). In it, we addressed the most common excuse for not embracing marketing & sales in an organization – “no time.”

Following closely on the heels of that is “no money!”

#2…NO MONEY!

“I don’t have the money!” is really code for one of the real excuses:

• “We’re too small to spend anything on marketing & sales.”
• “Business is bad/declining and we really don’t have any money to spend on business development.”
• “I might spend some money… but I don’t know what works and what doesn’t.”
• “All marketing is expensive, isn’t it?”

April 16, 2014

Stop making excuses about your [lack of] marketing & sales, Part 1

There’s a line from one of my wife’s favorite old movies, Working Girl (Harrison Ford, Melanie Griffith) where Ford’s character says, “The players may have changed, but the game remains the same…”

I think of that every time I hear someone from our industry gripe about why they don’t embrace marketing & sales.  And it doesn’t matter who I’m talking with, they all complain about the same things… always boiling down to one of three issues:

• “I’m just too busy to spend any time on it.”
• “I don’t have any money to spend on it.”
• “I don’t know what to do… or how to do it.”

April 9, 2014

Is “giving away” work a good idea?

I’ve been nurturing a relationship with a particular sales prospect for a little while now and he recently asked me to give him my comments on a press release he had written.  I reviewed it, rewrote some of it… and I did not charge him for my time.

There are many who say to NEVER give away any work – that doing so diminishes the value of what you do.

I’m in the other camp… I believe that there are times (not all the time, of course) when building some good will by giving away a small project might lead to bigger things down the road.  Here’s my rationale…

April 1, 2014

Don’t hire a sales rep until you’re ready… and most firms in MR aren’t!

In the discovery process with new clients, we talk about the kinds of things they’ve done in the past to help grow their businesses.  One of the statements that seems to be made by nearly every firm in the Market Research industry is, “We hired a sales rep back in [insert date years ago], but it didn’t work out… and haven’t had one since.”  Why is that?

While “below-goal sales” may have been the rationale for the sales reps’ dismissal, much of the lack of a sales rep’s success is often the fault of the MR firm itself.  And it generally boils down to one of four things…

March 26, 2014

How to Turn First-time Clients into Repeat Clients

A few months ago, we published an article on several ways to get potential clients to try your firm for the first time… to “take a chance” with you on that very first project.  But the fact is… you cannot build a company on first-time clients.  To grow a sustainable, successful firm, you need repeat clientele – those firms that come back to you again and again.  And turning first-time clients into repeat clients is an integral part of the marketing & sales process.

From a business development perspective, though, we rarely include that kind of thinking or discuss the kinds of activities necessary to help us keep our existing clients… most conversations that take place around marketing & sales center on the ‘new!’  New sales leads, new prospects, new presentations and – ultimately – new clients!  And that’s all good stuff.  But we need to change that mindset… according to a November 2012 article in Forbes magazine, “attracting new customers will cost your company 5 times more than keeping an existing customer.”