The Competitive Advantage

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.

January 7, 2020

20 Low-cost/No-cost Marketing & Sales Ideas to Kick-Start 2020

New month… new year… new decade! Pretty exciting! But are you starting 2020 with the same ol’ marketing & sales activities? If so, maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit. Below are 20 marketing & sales ideas to help you enhance your business development efforts in 2020. In no particular order…

December 30, 2019

The Top 11 Most-Read Marketing & Sales Blog Posts of 2019

As you may have seen in a post earlier this year, in the 7+ years since starting Harpeth Marketing, I have published more than 400 articles (this one is #420, to be exact!)… making this blog, The Competitive Advantage – the #1 marketing & sales resource in our industry! One of the benefits of writing so frequently is that my writing has developed a bit of a following (both on our website and on my LinkedIn profile). So, at this time every year, I like to look back at the articles I posted over the year and showcase those that were the most popular.

November 20, 2019

Their marketing worked! This time.

I needed a new part for my truck. The armrest was busted and I needed a new piece to fix it. I asked my mechanic about replacing the entire armrest, but was a little appalled at the cost of a new one. And I didn’t know quite where to go to find a piece as specific as the underside plate for an armrest in a Ford truck.

Then, in a huge stroke of luck/coincidence, I saw an ad on TV for a place called RockAuto. So, I went to their website, found the part, ordered it, the part showed up a few days later… boom! The advertising worked for them.

Sort of.

November 5, 2019

Stop the Insanity… Make a ‘Change’ to Your Marketing & Sales Efforts for 2020

For the past several years – at about this same time – I’ve written articles with tips & tricks for creating marketing & sales plans that help my readers get ready for the new year.

This year, I want to do something different.

We’ve all heard the definition of ‘insanity’… to keep doing the same things over and over and expecting the outcome to change. Sadly, that describes the marketing & sales efforts of a majority of the firms in our industry. So, maybe it’s time to shake things up.