The Competitive Advantage

September 8, 2025

30 minutes… 4 times a year

A message for agency owners and CEOs

I was on a call this morning with the Founder and CEO of a midsize firm in our industry. We were having a conversation about sales, part of which was how they were doing with their existing clients. Evidently, pretty good… according to him. “Our clients really like the work our firm is doing for them.” Great!

I followed that up by asking if he spent any time with his clients, particularly his largest accounts. He said, “Not really.”

August 5, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 3

Earlier this year, I interviewed a couple of research buyers around the topic of how they connect with and buy from their agency partners. They were (and still are) among the most read blogs I’ve ever posted. Well, as a result of hosting & moderating the Insights Association’s Summer Sales Webinar Series last month – and attending the Quirks NY Event – I’ve added a few more interviews to the list. I hope you find value in their perspective…

Name: Jen Lovinus
Title: Senior Manager, MRO Insights
Company: Grainger
Years at company: 3

July 21, 2025

What Buyers Want

And I know this because they told me!

Over the past couple of weeks, I had the pleasure and privilege of hosting and moderating the Insights Association’s Sales Accelerator Series. All the presenters were terrific, including the very insightful research buyers who participated in a panel discussion on the last day.

June 24, 2025

Want More Sales Success? Slow Down!

I was having a conversation earlier this week with one of my clients about his sales process. He had what was ostensibly a two-step process: Connect with someone on LinkedIn, then get them to see his software demonstration. And while he had decent success getting connections, and even some success getting prospects to sit through a demo, not much was happening after that. My advice to him? Slow down.

May 29, 2025

Churn Baby Churn!

One of the tools we use when onboarding a new client is something we call the ‘5-Year Revenue Review.’ It’s a report that your accounting team can easily provide: Revenue by Client by Year for the past 5 years. And what you can learn from it is interesting and eye-opening.

Many business leaders regularly look at revenue year-to-date and compare it to last-year-to-date. And that’s fine. That trouble is that even if there’s overall growth, it may be hiding problems lurking beneath the surface. But when look at a 5-year report, you’ll see gaps and trends in the data that a 2-year analysis can’t reveal.

August 8, 2023

How To and How NOT To Use LinkedIn for Selling… A True Story!

In the past week, I connected with two people on LinkedIn, each from a different research firm. And I had two very different experiences with them – one that was great and one that was horrible. The contrast between the two provides a really good lesson on how to use LinkedIn effectively to support your sales effort… and how not to!

July 18, 2022

Stop Selling on Price… It Can Ruin Your Business

I was having a conversation this past week with a firm in our industry when they told me that they had implemented a rebate program as a way to build and reward client loyalty… and to also have something new and interesting to catch prospects’ attention.

And to no one’s surprise, it was working pretty well. Existing clients appreciated the ‘free money’ (credits against future purchases) and it also got them in front of several new potential clients. I told them that I was happy for their success, but that they needed to be careful. That selling on price is a very risky B2B sales strategy. And for a whole host of reasons: