The Competitive Advantage

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

August 5, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 3

Earlier this year, I interviewed a couple of research buyers around the topic of how they connect with and buy from their agency partners. They were (and still are) among the most read blogs I’ve ever posted. Well, as a result of hosting & moderating the Insights Association’s Summer Sales Webinar Series last month – and attending the Quirks NY Event – I’ve added a few more interviews to the list. I hope you find value in their perspective…

Name: Jen Lovinus
Title: Senior Manager, MRO Insights
Company: Grainger
Years at company: 3

June 11, 2025

Skills Training? It’s Not Just for Research.

I was reading an article the other day entitled, “14% of Our Sellers Drive 80% of Our Revenue!” Kind of a staggering statistic… but not all that surprising.

Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle, also known as the 20/80 Rule? The theory applies to a lot of business situations… for example, that 20% of your clients generate 80% of your revenue; that 20% of your services drive 80% of your profits; and in this case, that 20% of your sales team generates 80% of your sales.

OK, but what if you’re a sales team of one (or two or three), as is often the case with small research firms in our industry? Well, statistically speaking, you likely fall into the 80% (industry-wide) of those who are not generating as much revenue as the other 20% in the industry. Sorry… no offense.