The Competitive Advantage

December 12, 2017

Corporate retreat coming up? Here are 3 key questions to answer there.

It’s that time of year when a business will gather its management team together and head to a secluded location somewhere in the woods or at the beach for their annual corporate retreat – to talk about and make plans for the future of their firm.

I am a HUGE fan of the idea (even doing it when I was a solopreneur: https://harpethmarketing.com/competitive-advantage/corporate-retreat-part-1/). In fact, we had this year’s corporate retreat just last week… and I have the pages and pages of flip chart notes to prove it!

As you prepare for your retreat, I believe there are three key questions that must be asked, discussed and collectively answered by the group. They are:

October 17, 2017

Better, Faster, Cheaper? Which do your clients really want?

“Which do you prefer – better, faster or cheaper?” I’m sure if you asked your clients directly which they would choose, their immediate response would, of course, be “All three!”

But if they had to pick one, which one do you think it would be?  It’s a topic I discuss frequently with firms across the MR industry.

October 10, 2017

My son quit his job to pursue his dream!, Part 2

Three months ago, I wrote a post about my son, Alex… quitting his job in Dallas to pursue his dream in New York City. Not only did he want to relocate to a city where he had no real network of contacts, he also wanted to change industries – from healthcare to music – again, with no real connections. But he had a dream!

September 19, 2017

What Makes a Specialist Special?

Most research firms are ‘generalists’… offering a variety of research methodologies to all kinds of firms in all kinds of industries. If it’s a profitable opportunity and if it fits their team’s skill set – they’ll take it.

And that’s fine. But with that broad approach to business comes a muddled and murky approach to marketing… decisions are difficult to make. Trying to serve so many kinds of companies in so many industries means far too many marketing options. So, how do you choose?

July 31, 2017

Differentiation: Just Being Different Isn’t Enough

Over the past five years, without a doubt, the most popular topic in my conversations with clients and prospective clients has been around ‘differentiation’… what they can do to stand out from their competitors. Everyone agrees there is far too much “sameness” in our industry – too many firms that look alike and sound alike all offering a range of services that are essentially the same. If you’re a prospective buyer, how do you choose?

May 16, 2017

Content marketing stalled by writer’s block? Here’s what I did.

For the past five years, I have posted a blog once a week, virtually without fail. As a provider of content marketing services, we not only have to talk the talk… we also have to walk the walk. But after nearly 250 posts… I hit a wall. For the first time since we started Harpeth Marketing, I had writers’ block.

It’s not that I couldn’t come up with any good ideas for posts, I couldn’t come up with any ideas… period! It was truly frustrating.

April 4, 2017

The 3 Cardinal Rules of Building Awareness

A simple fact: Potential buyers can’t buy from you if they don’t know you exist… or if you never come to mind for them.

So, whatever your marketing & sales plans, strategies or tactics… it all starts with being known. That is, it all starts with building awareness. Period.

January 25, 2017

Question: What percentage of your clients don’t return?

Answer: It’s a lot higher than you think!

Creating a “client for life.”

True story. I’ve been working with a large firm in our industry for the past several weeks… and one of the data-gathering projects we did early on was to look at Revenue by Client, for each of the past several years.

Of all of the insights that this exercise can provide, the most interesting – in this case – was that 40% of their clients only did one project with them… and then never returned!

We’ve done this “one-timer” analysis for many firms and the resulting information is ALWAYS a surprise… because the percentage of one-and-dones is ALWAYS higher than the client expected!