The Competitive Advantage

February 25, 2025

My Best Sales Tip? Ask more questions!

I was invited last week to be a guest lecturer at UT-Southern – a satellite campus for the University of Tennessee – located in the town of Pulaski. It’s a quaint campus about a 60-mile drive south from where I live.

This was my third visit to the campus, and this time, I was speaking to an upper-level entrepreneurship class (note: every student in the class had a business they were planning to launch upon graduation… and two had already started them – an impressive group!)

One of the ‘lessons learned’ that I shared with them was that if you are the business owner… then you’re in sales! No exceptions.

March 5, 2024

Pigeonholed by Clients? Here’s How to Break Free!

A while back, I was asked by one of my clients to talk to some of their clients. They wanted to get unfiltered feedback about how they were doing and those companies’ perception of them. I was happy to do it.

Now, all of these companies were good, fairly long-standing clients, so we expected pretty positive feedback. What we didn’t expect was the ‘pigeonhole’ conversations.

While I talked with only a dozen companies, three of them (again, good, long-standing clients) said that they would be interested in learning what else my client could do for them.

What?! My client had a good, ongoing relationship with these three companies, had been working with them for a couple of years, and yet, was providing only one service, when they could’ve been providing others?

How does this happen? And how can you change it?

November 29, 2023

Giving Client Gifts This Holiday Season? Why Not All Year Round?

It’s that time of year again, when the vast majority of businesses send out some sort of gifts to their clients as a holiday “thank you” for their business during the past year. It’s often a basket of fruit, a bottle of wine, a Starbucks gift card or maybe something ‘kitschy’ from the vendor’s home town. And I support that… I think sending out gifts for the holidays is a very nice gesture.

The problem is, for most companies, the gift giving stops there. Why?! Why would you not want to say “thank you” to your clients all year round?

July 25, 2023

Is ‘In-Person’ Still Relevant?

As I write this, I’m 35,000 feet over Pennsylvania, on my way home from the Quirks New York event… two days of networking, learning, selling and bonding for 1,500+ MR professionals. Well done, Team Quirks! And it’s because of that event that I’m writing this article. So, to answer the question in the headline – Is ‘In-Person’ Still Relevant? – consider this:

January 31, 2023

Get on a Plane… Go to a Conference

As I write this, I’m 30,000 feet in the air heading home to Nashville from Miami, where I participated in my first conference of the year – the Insights Association’s CEO Summit. It’s just my third conference in the past 12 months, along with Greenbook’s IIeX event last Spring in Austin and the Quirks Event in New York this past Summer.

And the result of attending all of these conferences? Exactly the same… and I mean that in a good way:

August 2, 2022

Stop Being Complacent… and Build ‘Other’ Relationships

Last year, I wrote a blog post entitled, ‘The number one reason why you lose clients? Arrogance!’ It was one of the most read posts in all of 2021. Today I want to write about reason #1A – and the one I hear about more than any other reason for the loss of clients – complacency! And the story (err… excuse!) goes something like this… “We had a great relationship with [insert Fortune 500 company name here]… and they were a great client for several years… but then our main contact left and we lost the business.”

February 9, 2022

A Great Experience with a Used Car Salesman… A Lesson for ALL Salespeople

‘Great experience’ and ‘used car salesman’ are generally not two phrases you see together, but in this case, it’s true… and the story provides some valuable lessons for all salespeople and seller-doers.

February 16, 2021

The #1 Reason Why You Lose Clients? Arrogance!

Sure, there are a lot of reasons why you lose clients… you messed up a project or a competitor dramatically under cut your prices or your key contact left the company. But the #1 reason why you lose clients is ‘arrogance.’

You assume that your good work is enough to solidify your relationship with the buyer. It isn’t.

You assume that your good work will keep you top-of-mind with clients. It won’t.