The Competitive Advantage

August 10, 2026

How Top Sellers Turn Lost Opportunities into Future Wins

Selling is hard work. And more often than not – in fact, way more often than not – a sales opportunity doesn’t work out. Most sales conversations don’t result in a request for a capabilities presentation… a large percentage of your presentations don’t result in an RFP… and, based on my research, your chance to win a proposal you’ve submitted hovers in the 30-40% range.

So, what do you do when a sales opportunity doesn’t work out?

June 30, 2026

What 600 Blog Posts Taught Me About Marketing, Sales and Growth

Yes, this actually is blog post #600. I started writing them shortly after I founded Harpeth Marketing in April 2012. Since then, I’ve written three or four posts every month. And you don’t do something that frequently and for so long without learning a few things about it. So here goes…

November 3, 2025

Your Best Path to New Business? The Clients You Already Have.

There is nothing in business that’s more difficult than acquiring a new client. Why? Because by definition, you’re ‘stealing’ them from a competitor.

You’re ostensibly saying to them, “I know you’ve worked with my competitor for the past five years – and they’ve done a good job for you – but forget about them. And take a chance with us!”

Not much of a sales pitch, is it? But that’s the reality of the situation. Asking a potential client to walk away from a vendor they know, like and trust requires them to take a leap of faith with you. It fills them with fear! Real fear… that if they take a chance and try you – and you screw up or are not as good as their existing supplier – then they’ll be in big trouble. So, what’s a vendor to do?

October 21, 2025

Stop Chasing New Clients: Focus on Keeping the Ones You Have

When most people think about ‘sales,’ they think about going out and acquiring new clients. And while that clearly is part of the sales function, I would argue that the higher sales priority is to ensure that you keep – and grow – your existing clients.

October 7, 2025

Hey Seller-Doer… How’s Your Reputation?

It’s a big factor in sales success.

As we’ve discussed often in this blog, there’s a lot of sameness in our industry (Article 1, Article 2). All too often, it’s the same kind of firms providing the same kinds of services to the same kinds of clients and talking about it in the same way.

So, with all of that sameness, how does a buyer make a decision? In the past, we’ve talked a lot about PODs (points of differentiation)… that is, differentiating your firm based on strategic decisions. For example, specializing in certain methodologies or focusing on specific industries.

But today, I want to talk about “reputation.” Not your firms, but yours… as a seller-doer.

September 8, 2025

30 minutes… 4 times a year

A message for agency owners and CEOs

I was on a call this morning with the Founder and CEO of a midsize firm in our industry. We were having a conversation about sales, part of which was how they were doing with their existing clients. Evidently, pretty good… according to him. “Our clients really like the work our firm is doing for them.” Great!

I followed that up by asking if he spent any time with his clients, particularly his largest accounts. He said, “Not really.”

August 19, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 5

This is the 3^rd installment (post 1, post 2) in our current blog series (and 5^th overall in this series) based on interviews with research buyers I’ve had the opportunity to meet recently. They have all been kind enough to share with me how they like to connect with (and ultimately, be sold to by) research vendors/agencies. If you work in any capacity for an agency, this series will help you better understand your clients.

Name: Nicole Whitlow
Title: Head of Global Consumer Insights, KitchenAid
Company: Whirlpool
Years at company: 6

August 12, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 4

In our last post, we continued this blog series based on interviews with research buyers I had the pleasure of meeting over the last couple of months. Their insight into how buyer’s buy should be required reading for all MR agency employees. Here’s #4 in that series…

Name:  Brett Garrison
Title:  Manager, Market Insights
Company:  Aflac
Years at company:  8