The Competitive Advantage

February 24, 2026

The Fastest Way to Improve Sales Performance? Model What Already Works.

We’ve all heard the phrase that, “You learn more when you fail than when you succeed.” Well, that may not be exactly true when it comes to selling, especially inside of research agencies. Maybe your salespeople can learn to be better at selling when they model their sales behavior after the most successful performer(s) on your team.

June 11, 2025

Skills Training? It’s Not Just for Research.

I was reading an article the other day entitled, “14% of Our Sellers Drive 80% of Our Revenue!” Kind of a staggering statistic… but not all that surprising.

Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle, also known as the 20/80 Rule? The theory applies to a lot of business situations… for example, that 20% of your clients generate 80% of your revenue; that 20% of your services drive 80% of your profits; and in this case, that 20% of your sales team generates 80% of your sales.

OK, but what if you’re a sales team of one (or two or three), as is often the case with small research firms in our industry? Well, statistically speaking, you likely fall into the 80% (industry-wide) of those who are not generating as much revenue as the other 20% in the industry. Sorry… no offense.

February 5, 2025

Seller-Doers: What Are Your Goals for This Year?

No, not your revenue goals… but your personal growth goals?

And not those silly New Year’s resolutions that are almost certainly forgotten by now… but personal goals that will help you develop into a true sales professional. Don’t have them? Well, let me give you a few things to think about…

January 2, 2024

The Top 5 Blog Posts of 2023

Every year, about this time, I like to look back at our blog posts from the previous year and highlight those that were read the most. Not only does it do my ego a little good, but more importantly, it let’s me know what topics are of most interest in the marketplace… and that provides a little guidance on the topics to write about in the coming year.

So, without further ado, here are the top 5 most-read blog posts from 2023:

June 18, 2019

Why you “hate selling”… and what you can do about it.

“I hate selling!” It’s one of those phrases I hear often from seller-doers in our industry – the independent consultants, small business owners and senior executives at larger firms who have “sales” as a part of their job description, but don’t really want to be doing it.

But why is that? Why do so many non-salespeople hate selling? Their reason for the disdain of sales can likely be traced back to one (or more) of the following…