The Competitive Advantage

February 26, 2014

Giving client gifts? Are they “unexpected?”

On my flight home from the MRA Conference in Las Vegas two weeks ago, I was watching an old movie on my iPad… Finding Forrester, with Sean Connery.  A really good movie, by the way, if you haven’t seen it.

In it, he’s giving advice to young man on the best way to a woman’s heart.  And his is advice is to give… “an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.”

Great advice… and it works for clients, too.

January 2, 2014

Track your revenue this year… really track it!

Ah… the start of a new year.  The excitement.  The possibilities.  The same ol’ stuff?!

Before you can decide where you want to go, you need to understand where you’ve been… and the following little exercise can help you leverage the past to think more effectively and more strategically about the future of your firm.

December 18, 2013

Are your PMs up-selling and cross-selling? They should be!

Every time I go to my local coffeeshop – which is several times each week – I get the same thing… a medium coffee.  In fact, when they see me walk in, a cup is waiting for me at the counter.  (I don’t know if I love the customer service or hate that I’m so predictable!)

But what’s really interesting – even though I am a very good customer – is that the person behind the counter never says… “Would you like a scone with that?” or “We just took some muffins out of the oven – would you like one today?”

And my question is… why not?  Why not take 5 seconds to try to up-sell me?  To add to my order?  To incrementally increase sales?

November 26, 2013

It’s OK to say ‘no’ to a sales rep.

We’ve all been there… we submit a bid or proposal for a project and don’t hear back for a few days.  So we check in, only to be told they’ve been wrapped up with another project and haven’t had a chance to look at it yet – but will get back to us in a few days.  Good news.  A few more days pass and we check in again… and this time he hear, “It looks good… but no final decision yet.”  Ahhh… hope!

October 15, 2013

Are you a memorable sales rep?

A true story… I was speaking to a friend of mine, Cary, last weekend and he was telling me that he was out visiting some long-standing clients (in the healthcare industry).  During these calls, several of them said to him that they “really missed John (his colleague) and his grapes.”  Grapes?!  Really?!

I had to know more.

October 1, 2013

Hey sales rep… do your homework!

Do you know who your customers are?  Sure you do.  You can probably describe them with some level of granularity.  And you know, in a broad way, what they do and how they use your services.  Good.

Well, I received a phone call (actually, they left a voice mail) yesterday that showed that not everyone is as smart as you.

July 24, 2013

If your summer is slow, focus on marketing & sales for a competitive advantage; part 6 – target new sales prospects

There you are, sitting at the beach, cool drink in your hands, warm waters lapping at your toes… and you’re complaining to yourself that business needs to improve.   OK, so what are you doing to make that happen?  Remember… “If you keep doin’ what you’re doin’… you’ll keep gettin’ what you’re gettin’!”

Our summer blog series has, for the most part, been marketing-related – prepping for conferences, getting active on LinkedIn, enhancing your online presence, even cleaning up your database.

But now it’s time to put on your ‘sales’ hat.  It’s time to start reaching out to actual human beings, starting a dialogue and helping them to make good purchasing decisions.

March 27, 2013

Hiring your first sales rep? Answer these 3 questions first… (part 2 of a 3-part series)

This is part 2 of a 3-part series to help answer a few important questions for those firms in the market research industry that are thinking about hiring their first sales rep.

In part 1, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Inside vs. Outside sales rep.  In this post…

Question #2: Hunter or Farmer?