The Competitive Advantage

September 23, 2015

Don’t Be an Idiot When Making Marketing & Sales Decisions

How do you make your marketing & sales decisions?

For example…

• What topics do you choose to blog about?
• How do you decide what your ads will say?
• Why don’t you Tweet?

For most people and most firms… these kinds of decisions are often made by the senior executive at the firm… who relies (far too much, IMHO) on his or her own feelings… on what they think ought to happen… and on what their gut tells them to do. And even if it’s a reasonably well-informed gut – it’s still boils down to just a guess.

September 1, 2015

Is the “Customer Experience” improving in our society?

In the course of just a few days last week, I had four separate [unexpected] experiences that made me wonder if businesses are finally starting to “get it”… and understand that the Customer Experience may be the most important aspect of marketing, let alone its obvious impact on satisfaction and loyalty.

August 18, 2015

Why you get hired… the reason behind the reason

Last week, I was chatting with a friend about our firm – what we do and who we serve – when he asked me what I thought was a fairly straight-forward question, “Why do you get hired?”

I responded with a few of those things I thought he would expect to hear: “We have a proven track record”… “We offer services in the market research industry that virtually no one else does.”… “We work only in the MR industry which allows us to hit the ground running.” And so on.

Then he said, “No! Why do you really get hired? What’s the reason behind the reason?” Ahh… now I understood what he was getting at.

August 11, 2015

LITTLE things make a BIG difference with CX

I’ll admit it… I am a Southwest Airlines loyalist – it’s the only airline I fly unless there is simply no other option. Been that way for years. I was on my way home from Baltimore last week and as we’re boarding, I kept hearing one of the flight attendants repeat an announcement about the best way to place the larger carry-on bags in the overhead bin.

Carry-ons are continually an issue. There are always a few folks whose luggage won’t fit or the overheads are just full… so they have to get back out of the plane and check their bag at the jetway… slowing things down.

July 14, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 4

This is the fourth of five posts in which we are interviewing noted business owners and leaders from across the Market Research industry to explore how top firms look at and utilize marketing & sales for their businesses.

This week, we talked with Anne Bailey Berman, President and CEO of Chadwick Martin Bailey, based in Boston, Mass.

July 7, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 3

This is the third in a series of posts where we’ve interviewed business owners and leaders from across our industry to help get an understanding of how top firms look at and utilize marketing & sales for their firms.

This week, we talked with Merrill Dubrow, President & CEO of M/A/R/C Research, based in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

June 30, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 2

Last week, we began a 5-part series on how business owners and leaders in the market research industry really feel about marketing & sales. For this week’s post, we interviewed Brett Watkins, CEO at L&E Research, based in Raleigh, NC.

June 9, 2015

8 ‘Lazy’ LinkedIn Mistakes Too Many Users Make

We all know about LinkedIn – THE social network for businesspeople. Rarely do I come across a client, prospect or vendor who is not on it. I am not a ‘power user’ (I still take advantage of a free account), but I am an active user – connecting often, posting frequently and participating in online conversations.

And as an active user, I see way too many mistakes made by way too many users – all of which happen simply because they are too lazy to take a few minutes to “do it right.” Here are the most egregious of the LinkedIn mistakes (in no particular order)…