The Competitive Advantage

December 28, 2022

The Top 10 Blog Posts of 2022

Over the past year, our blog posts were read thousands of times. To all of you who stopped by to take a peek… thank you. We hope you found the articles to be interesting, helpful and maybe even a little inspirational.

Secondly, our blog now houses more than 500 articles on sales and marketing (this is actually #521), all related to growing your business in our industry. And the fact is, if you keep reading them… we’ll keep writing them.

December 21, 2022

Are You Prepared for Sales and Marketing in 2023?

As 2022 winds down, and you start looking at your sales and marketing efforts for 2023, there’s one question you’re probably asking yourself – like we all are – and that is, “How do we grow [more] next year?”

Before I try to answer that question, let me share one of my favorite business philosophies… “If you keep doin’ what you’re doin’, you’ll keep gettin’ what you’re gettin’.” The fact is, if you want to grow in 2023 – or grow more than you did in 2022 – you’ll have to try something new. Or maybe several somethings. Maybe this is the year you test LinkedIn advertising, create some videos or employ SEO in your marketing. Or finally pull the trigger on hiring your first full-time sales rep.

Whatever it is… you need to embrace it. If not, then the best that you can hope for in 2023 is exactly what happened to you this year.

September 6, 2022

Wanna Grow? You Need Sales AND Marketing.

When it comes to sales and marketing in our industry, I bump up against two extremes more often than not. Some companies invest in sales teams, but don’t do much in the way of marketing to pave the way for them or support them along the journey. On the flip side are other firms that employ only marketing to create a presence in the marketplace and perhaps generate some sales leads… only to have a reticent and untrained seller-doer not take the necessary actions to build relationships with buyers and acquire clients. The reality is this… for you to successfully grow your business, you need both sales and marketing.

April 12, 2022

Think-Plan-Do #2: 3 More Smart Ideas For Your Marketing & Sales

This is the second in our new once-a-month Think-Plan-Do blog series where I’ll share three low-cost/no cost ideas to help with your sales and marketing efforts. [You can read the first one here.] This month, our three topics are:

Think: You have two kinds of clients

Plan: The sales pipeline report

Do: Tips for your capabilities presentation

February 22, 2022

Take Charge of Your Firm’s Growth

When I chat with the owners of market research firms across the U.S. about the growth of their businesses, three primary strategies rise to the top:

1. Referrals
2. Key contact relocation (they leave and take you with them to their new employer)
3. Repeat clients

And if these are among the top drivers of the growth of your business, too, you need to be concerned. Why? Because in every one of these very common scenarios, you are relying on someone else to make your firm successful. Is that really what you want?

January 11, 2022

8 Last-Minute Ideas For Your 2022 Sales & Marketing Plan

Is your 2022 sales & marketing plan done? If your firm is like a lot of others, you might still be wrapping it up. And even if it is done, it’s supposed to be a living document… to be updated/changed as the year progresses. In either case, I wanted to share a few last-minute tactical ideas for you to consider adding to your plan.

September 14, 2021

Too busy for sales and marketing? Stop lying to yourself!

Most every firm I’ve spoken with of late is doing pretty well – business picked up in Q4 of last year and continues to be strong. And while some experienced a bit of the traditional summer slowdown this year, nearly all are expecting a very strong fourth quarter again. And that’s great! We should all enjoy and benefit from a strong business environment.

But there will be a downturn in business at some point… no one is sure when… but it’s coming. It always does. Are you preparing for it now?

June 1, 2021

Creating a Sales Culture is Critical to Success

Firms in the Market Research industry are, by nature, operationally-focused. You manage your businesses around delivering services to clients, almost always one project at a time. Virtually everyone on staff is there to contribute to the projects. It’s what you do and who you are. New clients come to you as a result of the good work you do and word of mouth.

Then you make the decision to become more ‘proactive’ with your sales effort. Maybe you bring in a full-time sales rep… or designate a couple of your senior staff as “seller-doers.” Either way, the chances of success with your new sales efforts are dramatically enhanced if you can help to create a ‘sales culture’ within your organization. Without it, you’re likely to stir up rumor, speculation and a lot of resentment.