The Competitive Advantage

July 25, 2023

Is ‘In-Person’ Still Relevant?

As I write this, I’m 35,000 feet over Pennsylvania, on my way home from the Quirks New York event… two days of networking, learning, selling and bonding for 1,500+ MR professionals. Well done, Team Quirks! And it’s because of that event that I’m writing this article. So, to answer the question in the headline – Is ‘In-Person’ Still Relevant? – consider this:

March 29, 2023

Want to Win Your Clients’ Trust? Change 1 Word in Your Vocabulary.

I was having a conversation with a client last week – the president and his senior staff. We were talking about their business objectives for the year and the kinds of marketing and sales efforts they would need to achieve them.

As I was laying out a number of strategies and tactics that could help them reach their goals, the president interrupted me, and said, “Steve, don’t tell us what we could be doing… tell us what we should be doing.”

March 2, 2023

It Really Is All About the Customer Experience

For Christmas of 2021, my wife and I bought our daughter and her husband, a Nespresso coffeemaker to replace an old Keurig machine that went kaput. And they loved it and have been using it ever since.

But recently, they started having some problems with it… and here’s where the story gets interesting.

May 10, 2022

A Great Customer Experience Comes Down to One Thing

I spent several days last week with my grandchildren at Disney World in Orlando (yes, that’s my grandson in the photo). It’s been almost 20 years since I was last there and Disney hasn’t missed a beat… the customer experience there is still unmatched.

As I walked through the parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom), I kept asking myself, “Why is the experience here so good? What are they doing that’s so special?”

February 9, 2022

A Great Experience with a Used Car Salesman… A Lesson for ALL Salespeople

‘Great experience’ and ‘used car salesman’ are generally not two phrases you see together, but in this case, it’s true… and the story provides some valuable lessons for all salespeople and seller-doers.

September 21, 2021

Your Customers’ Experience (CX) with Your Firm Can Make or Break You!

I’m a bourbon drinker. But sadly, this blog post isn’t about bourbon… it’s about CX – the customer experience.

As a bourbon drinker, I have gotten into the habit of sending bottles of bourbon as gifts to clients. And I’ve been using a website called ReserveBar.com to do it.

It’s a really easy site to use… to find the particular product I’m looking for and to have it sent. But recently, I had a problem with a purchase there.

June 15, 2021

If You’re in Sales, Your Job Is Not to Sell!

Yeah, I know… sounds kind of wrong, doesn’t it? But let me finish that statement. Your job is not to sell… it’s to help buyers buy.

This philosophy is based on the premise that ‘people don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy.’ Think about your last car buying experience. There’s nothing that feels quite as good as driving off the dealer’s lot in a beautiful, brand new car. But leading up to it, you dreaded going to the dealership because of the pushy salespeople. You didn’t want to experience that sort of pressure or be forced into buying something that wasn’t quite right.

Now think about your role as a sales rep or a seller-doer. If you make a sale, that’s good for you… you win. But maybe it’s not what’s best for the client. However, if you help the client make a good buying decision, that’s a win-win.

March 30, 2021

Why don’t research firms conduct research on themselves?

We’ve all heard the saying that “The cobbler’s children have no shoes”… which means, in business terms, that some companies are really good at doing things for their clients, but not so good at doing those same things for themselves.

And there’s no escaping that predicament in the Market Research industry.

For the nine years we’ve been in business, we’ve worked with scores of market research firms across the U.S. and around the world… and with relatively few exceptions, none of these firms conduct any research on themselves. Specifically, they’re not doing any post-project customer satisfaction surveys.