The Competitive Advantage

December 29, 2020

The Top 10 Most-Read Blog Posts of 2020

According to Google Analytics, there were more than 10,000 Page Views of our blog this past year. And as I do every year at this time… I wanted to do a count-down of the most-reads topics. But I did the measurement a little differently this year.

Instead of looking at the most popular posts that were written in 2020, I looked at which posts were the most viewed in 2020, regardless of when they were written. Interestingly, these “hot topics” spanned the entire life of our company… from as early as 2012 (the year we were founded) up to several from this year.

We hope you enjoy them…

July 28, 2020

12 Things to Do When Launching a New Service or Product

Congratulations! With the extra time you’ve had on your hands recently, you and your colleagues decided the time was right to launch a new service. Not just a small upgrade to what you’re already doing… but something entirely new. That’s terrific news.

Probably.

July 21, 2020

The Top 10 Marketing & Sales Blog Posts of 2020 (so far!)

In the first six months of this year, more than 5,000 visitors spent some time on our blog, The Competitive Advantage. A deep and genuine “thank you” goes out to all of you who visited.

At the half-way point in the year, I thought it would be interesting to look back and see which articles attracted the most readers. Not surprisingly, several of the top posts were about conducting marketing & sales during the pandemic. But not all of them.

June 9, 2020

Marketing & Sales During the Pandemic: Invest or Wait-n-See?

I’ve talked with a lot of business owners in our industry over the past few months, and every firm falls into one of just two buckets… those that are actively investing in marketing & sales during the pandemic and those that are standing pat and taking a wait-and-see stance.

And by ‘invest,’ I don’t necessarily mean money (though a little of that wouldn’t hurt)… I’m talking about a commitment to an active marketing & sales initiative. To spend the time and effort to make it happen… and then to stick with it.

You can easily guess which side I come down on, but not because marketing & sales are the businesses we’re in… but because it really is the smart thing to do.

And here’s why…

April 14, 2020

With the ‘new normal,’ is a marketing & sales plan still useful?

Uhhh… no and yes!

As we all know, we’re experiencing an unusual time right now… everything in life – and in business – is changing very rapidly. And the speed of all of those changes is fundamentally impacting the way we conduct business.

One of the many questions these changes are forcing us to answer is, “Do we still need a marketing & sales plan?” Many of us spent so much time at the end of last year planning for how to tackle growth this year… is what we did then still relevant?

April 6, 2020

Stuck-at-home marketing & sales, part 4

Low-cost/no-cost marketing & sales ideas #19-23…

If you’ve been following along the past few weeks (3/18, 3/24, 3/31), we’ve explored 18 different marketing & sales activities you could employ while you’ve got a little extra time on your hands during the pandemic. Here’s a quick rundown:

March 24, 2020

Stuck-at-home marketing & sales, part 2

5 MORE things you can do while you’re hunkered down during the pandemic.

In last week’s post, I outlined 7 low-cost/no-cost marketing & sales ideas you could implement while you had a little extra time on your hands during this COVID-19 outbreak. Since it looks like this ‘new normal’ will be with us for a while, here are 5 more marketing & sales activities to work on while your new office is the kitchen table:

March 18, 2020

Stuck-at-home marketing & sales, part 1

7 low-cost/no-cost things to do with the extra time on your hands.

We’re in the midst of an unusual and unprecedented time period. Business owners simply don’t know how to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.

Some are promoting their services that can help right now… for example, offering to conduct online qual research, rather than doing in-person focus groups. Others are mentioning their enhanced healthy employee procedures. And that’s fine.