The Competitive Advantage

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?

March 19, 2024

What are your buyers buying? Hint: NOT what you’re selling!

I think most people with sales responsibility – full-time salespeople and seller-doers – understand that being successful at selling is essentially about being successful at solving your clients’ problems. And they’d be right.

But here’s the rub… too many salespeople think that what they sell IS the solution to their clients’ problems. And when that’s their mindset – especially for seller-doers at research agencies – they spend all of their time talking to potential buyers about their methodologies, or their cool technology, or the new industry pro they just hired. And that’s understandable… It’s where they’re most comfortable and what they know.

But it’s wrong!

March 5, 2024

Pigeonholed by Clients? Here’s How to Break Free!

A while back, I was asked by one of my clients to talk to some of their clients. They wanted to get unfiltered feedback about how they were doing and those companies’ perception of them. I was happy to do it.

Now, all of these companies were good, fairly long-standing clients, so we expected pretty positive feedback. What we didn’t expect was the ‘pigeonhole’ conversations.

While I talked with only a dozen companies, three of them (again, good, long-standing clients) said that they would be interested in learning what else my client could do for them.

What?! My client had a good, ongoing relationship with these three companies, had been working with them for a couple of years, and yet, was providing only one service, when they could’ve been providing others?

How does this happen? And how can you change it?

January 31, 2024

Talkin’ Business at the Bar

3 Business Owners Agree on Their Top Sales & Marketing Challenges

Last week, while attending the CEO Summit in Florida (btw, great job Insights Association!), I had the chance one evening to talk a little business at the bar with three business owners. They each owned a research agency and had between 10 and 50 employees. As the evening wore on, two really interesting topics bubbled to the surface:

• Differentiating their firm
• Getting PMs to have ‘sales conversations’

It was fascinating.

January 2, 2024

The Top 5 Blog Posts of 2023

Every year, about this time, I like to look back at our blog posts from the previous year and highlight those that were read the most. Not only does it do my ego a little good, but more importantly, it let’s me know what topics are of most interest in the marketplace… and that provides a little guidance on the topics to write about in the coming year.

So, without further ado, here are the top 5 most-read blog posts from 2023:

November 29, 2023

Giving Client Gifts This Holiday Season? Why Not All Year Round?

It’s that time of year again, when the vast majority of businesses send out some sort of gifts to their clients as a holiday “thank you” for their business during the past year. It’s often a basket of fruit, a bottle of wine, a Starbucks gift card or maybe something ‘kitschy’ from the vendor’s home town. And I support that… I think sending out gifts for the holidays is a very nice gesture.

The problem is, for most companies, the gift giving stops there. Why?! Why would you not want to say “thank you” to your clients all year round?

November 14, 2023

When a Potential Buyer Reaches Out to You, Whaddaya Do?

A 6-six step process for handling inquiries…

It doesn’t happen a lot… but it does happen. A prospective buyer completes the ‘get in touch’ form on your website requesting more information about your firm. And if they’re going to the trouble of doing this, it’s likely for one of two reasons. Maybe they’re just curious. They stumbled across your website or heard about you from a colleague and want to learn more. Or perhaps, they have a project in mind and think you have the ability to get the job done. Either way, when that inquiry comes in, whaddaya do?