The Competitive Advantage

April 7, 2025

Create a Sales Plan for Your Seller-Doer Sales Team

Part 2 of a 4-part series on managing seller-doers.

In Part 1 of this series, we explored how to create a sales-friendly culture… that is, to help make your firm the kind of firm that likes, respects and appreciates what your seller-doers make possible for everyone else there.

Now, with your culture improving and a seller-doer sales team in place, it’s time to create your sales plan… that is, your “roadmap” to help you and your team achieve sales success. Following is an outline to help you create that plan:

April 1, 2025

Creating a Sales-Friendly Culture

Part 1 of a 4-part series on managing seller-doers.

The vast majority of salespeople at Research firms are “seller-doers.” That is, they are senior managers, subject matter experts or longtime researchers, who have also been tasked with selling… part-time. And not surprisingly, their sales manager is most often the business owner, president or managing director who has also been tasked with managing the seller-doers… part-time.

If you’re one of those sales managers (with little or, likely, no formal sales management training), this 4-part blog series on sales management will cover the fundamentals to make sure you get the most from your seller-doer sales team.

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.

February 5, 2025

Seller-Doers: What Are Your Goals for This Year?

No, not your revenue goals… but your personal growth goals?

And not those silly New Year’s resolutions that are almost certainly forgotten by now… but personal goals that will help you develop into a true sales professional. Don’t have them? Well, let me give you a few things to think about…

November 19, 2024

‘Former’ Clients Don’t Have to Be ‘Former’ Forever

When a client leaves you for a competitor, do they come back? In many – if not most – cases, the answer is ‘no.’ But why is that?

For most of us, when we lose a client, our mindset becomes, “Well, it was a good run – time for us to move on.” In some cases, we get busy with other clients and other projects and just forget about them. Occasionally, we get pissed at them, “How dare they? We did good work for them… why are they leaving?” But the fact is, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Gone doesn’t have to mean gone forever. Here’s an example of a client experience that happened to us recently…

November 5, 2024

How NOT to Be an Effective Sales Manager in Our Industry

True story… I was talking recently with an agency-side market research professional that I’ve known for a long while. He not only heads up one of the primary service lines for his firm, but he’s also responsible for revenue generation for his team… the true definition of a ‘seller-doer.’

We talked about some of the challenges he’s facing in the marketplace, and as I asked some questions about his selling environment, the conversation slowly transitioned to a number of internal issues he’s facing – most of which, sadly, are far too common in our industry. And none of which are his fault…

October 29, 2024

Ditch Your Capabilities Presentation!

OK, this one is likely to stir up some response, but I’m feeling a little ‘contrarian’ today… so here goes: I think market research agencies should stop delivering capabilities presentations as part of their sales process. And here’s why…

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…