The Competitive Advantage

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 24, 2015

Marketing & Sales Advice from Leaders in our Industry, Part 1

Marketing & sales – and the results they produce – are important to everyone in a firm… but perhaps to no one more so than the owners and senior leaders of those firms… those who have P&L responsibility and who are charged with the growth and sustainability of those businesses.

To get an inside look at how marketing & sales are viewed inside the “C Suite,” we interviewed the leaders of five very well-known, highly-regarded firms in our industry. We think their perspective will be helpful to those struggling with marketing & sales in their firms.

Up first in this 5-part series… Paul Metz, Executive Vice President/Managing Partner at C+R Research in Chicago.

May 27, 2015

How to Manage Long Sales Cycles

I was talking with a client last week about the long sales cycles in our industry. I was “bragging” that I have one client that took nearly two years to convert from prospect to client. Unimpressed, the client then mentioned that he had one that took eight years!

OK, eight years is a little ridiculous, but a 6-12-18 month sales cycle is an all-too-common scenario in B2B professional services industries… one that we all have to learn to mange. From my perspective, there are two key strategies for “sticking with it” through the long sales cycle.