The Competitive Advantage

October 14, 2025

Introverts Can Sell Too: Busting the Big Sales Myths

Over the past several years, I’ve trained hundreds of MR professionals, 95% of whom were seller-doers. And there are two major reasons (ahem… excuses) that I’ve heard from these workshop participants as to why they can’t sell (ahem… don’t want to sell):

• “I’m an introvert!”
• “I’m not a natural born salesperson.”

Sound familiar? Let’s dissect these and bust apart these misconceptions.

October 7, 2025

Hey Seller-Doer… How’s Your Reputation?

It’s a big factor in sales success.

As we’ve discussed often in this blog, there’s a lot of sameness in our industry (Article 1, Article 2). All too often, it’s the same kind of firms providing the same kinds of services to the same kinds of clients and talking about it in the same way.

So, with all of that sameness, how does a buyer make a decision? In the past, we’ve talked a lot about PODs (points of differentiation)… that is, differentiating your firm based on strategic decisions. For example, specializing in certain methodologies or focusing on specific industries.

But today, I want to talk about “reputation.” Not your firms, but yours… as a seller-doer.

August 19, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 5

This is the 3^rd installment (post 1, post 2) in our current blog series (and 5^th overall in this series) based on interviews with research buyers I’ve had the opportunity to meet recently. They have all been kind enough to share with me how they like to connect with (and ultimately, be sold to by) research vendors/agencies. If you work in any capacity for an agency, this series will help you better understand your clients.

Name: Nicole Whitlow
Title: Head of Global Consumer Insights, KitchenAid
Company: Whirlpool
Years at company: 6

August 12, 2025

Inside the Mind of a Research Buyer, Part 4

In our last post, we continued this blog series based on interviews with research buyers I had the pleasure of meeting over the last couple of months. Their insight into how buyer’s buy should be required reading for all MR agency employees. Here’s #4 in that series…

Name:  Brett Garrison
Title:  Manager, Market Insights
Company:  Aflac
Years at company:  8

July 29, 2025

The Future is Face-to-Face

I was reading a post on LinkedIn yesterday, talking about AI, and suggesting that one of the fallouts from it is that in the very near future, we won’t know if what we see and hear online or in apps is ‘real’ or was created by AI. Because of that, Marc Cuban – billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks – is predicting “an explosion of face-to-face engagements, events, and jobs.”

Well, that sure seemed to be the case last week at The Quirk’s Event in New York.

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.

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.

November 12, 2024

Nobody Gets Forgotten!

I was having a conversation last week with my client and friend up north (Canada, not Kentucky!), Stephan Sigaud with Phase 5. We were talking about his smart use of a CRM platform and effective communication with buyers.

During the conversation, he used the phrase, “Nobody gets forgotten!” I lit up! That’s the perfect way to describe how you should stay in touch with clients and prospects. And Stephan makes it easy on himself. Here’s how…