The Competitive Advantage

September 22, 2026

Having a Tough Year? STOP Doing These Five Things to Your Sales & Marketing.

2026 has been a challenging year for a lot of firms. Often, the finger of blame is pointed at the buyers because they’re delaying or canceling projects. That’s fair. In some cases, firms cut back on sales and marketing to save money, but that kills whatever momentum they’ve built in the marketplace

There’s a third culprit… one that’s rarely talked about… but one that can severely and negatively impact a firm’s growth efforts.  And that’s investing in the wrong sales and marketing efforts. Here are five examples where that often shows up…

January 22, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 2

In our last post, we started this blog series based on interviews with research buyers I had the pleasure of meeting at the end of last year. Their insight into how buyer’s buy should be required reading for all MR agency employees. Here’s the second in that series…

Name: Brad Dancer
Title: President & General Manager
Company: WSHU Public Radio
Years at company: 1, after 22 years at National Geographic (EVP, Global Data, Insights & Brand Standards) and 3 years at WWE (SVP, Global Strategy & Data Analytics)

January 7, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 1

This past November, I had the privilege of hosting and moderating the Insights Association’s webinar series on sales. [A terrific event, by the way!] As part of this program, I had the chance to meet with several research buyers representing a variety of businesses across the US. And a few of them agreed to allow me to interview them for this blog. Here’s a transcript from the first of those interviews…

Name: Karen Kraft
Title: Associate Director, Consumer Insights & Analytics
Company: Johnsonville
Years at co: 6

October 8, 2024

Fish Where the Fish Are… How Sales is Like My Favorite Hobby

For those of you who know me, you know that one of my hobbies/passions is fishing. There’s nothing quite like standing in a cool stream, water flowing around your legs (washing away your stress) with a nice smallmouth bass on the end of the line. My happy place!

As I was standing in the Harpeth River recently – yes, that’s why I named our firm as I did – it dawned on me that sales is a lot like fishing. Let me explain…

May 8, 2024

“It’s always feast-or-famine around here!“

If ‘feast-or-famine’ is not the top complaint I hear from business owners, it’s certainly in the top three. And to be honest, it’s their own fault!

Think about it… when you’re busy (the feast), you focus on your clients’ projects. But when they slow down (the famine), it’s only then that you decide to spend some effort on sales and marketing. When that has an impact, business picks up (the next feast)… until it doesn’t any more (the next famine).

And so it goes… an endless cycle of revenue ups and downs, which makes your business difficult to manage and extremely stressful.

April 22, 2024

Stop Relying on Others for Your Success… Take Charge of Your Business

Creating a Revenue Growth Plan for Independent Consultants and Small Businesses

It’s an interesting dilemma. Most people become independent consultants, or start small shops, so they can focus on research and on doing great work for their clients. They certainly didn’t start their businesses so they could spend their time doing sales and marketing.

And yet—as small-business owners—they absolutely have to do that. If they don’t, who will?

August 22, 2023

I’ve Been Blogging About Sales & Marketing Since 2012… What’s Changed?

I was scrolling through my blog posts last week… and just for fun, I decided to go back to read some of my very first articles (written in 2012) to see how much sales and marketing have changed in the past 11 years. Guess what? Not much!

Sure, technology tools are more pervasive and capable today than in 2012, but the core fundamentals of sales and marketing are pretty much the same… and I can prove it!

April 26, 2023

“If I can’t measure it, I’m not doing it!”

My technology manager and I were chatting with a client last week about different ways to approach marketing, when the client suddenly said, “If I can’t measure it, I’m not doing it!” Wow! I love that!

Most businesspeople we talk with don’t think a lot about measurement when they’re talking about marketing. And if they do, it’s very rarely to that extent. I was genuinely shocked!