Every (yes, every) Saturday morning since we opened the doors to Harpeth Marketing, I have gone to a local coffee shop (in fact, I’m here now as I write this) to work on things not necessarily related to taking care of clients.  One of those tasks is writing… for my blog, my monthly article for Quirk’s or developing an eBook.

But this week… I hit the wall.  After 60+ weeks of crankin’ it out… I didn’t know what to write about.  I went to my editorial calendar… but I hadn’t looked this far forward so no topics were listed.  What am I going to write about… what do I want to write about?

And then it hit me… that is not the question to be asking.  Then question is (and should always be)… what do my clients (and prospective clients) want to read about?  What’s important to them?  What do they care about?

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I recently delivered a presentation on marketing at the annual CASRO Management Conference in New Orleans.

It was called, “12 reasons why your marketing & sales might not be working and what you can do about it.”  Other than creating the PowerPoint presentation itself, it took me no time to develop… no time flushing out ideas, no time refining concepts, no time finalizing the content.

How was I so lucky? Easy… the presentation already existed.  It was based on an eBook I had published a few months earlier.  I simply took the content that had been developed for the eBook and ‘re-purposed’ it for the presentation.

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Creating strong client relationships is built on a 3-legged stool…

• Excellent service
• Low prices
• Great products/services

And the presumption has always been… you can deliver on two… but never on all three.  E.g. You can be fast and cheap – but the quality won’t be so great.  Or, you can turn it around quickly with great products – but it’ll cost you.

I have always believed this to be true – not just in MR but in every industry – until I went wine shopping with a friend of mine at Beltway Fine Wine & Spirits, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland.

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At the risk of sounding like I’m a little full of myself, I’m going to toot my own horn… but only to make a point.

We had an inquiry from a good-size research firm in the U.K. recently, which was sort of unusual… since I don’t really do anything to try to build business there. So I was a little flattered.

During the introductory portion of the call (gotta love Skype!), my contact said that he reached out to me, “because you’re the most recognized name in marketing & sales in our industry in the UK.”  Are you kidding me?!  How did that happen?!

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I’m writing this blog post from a coffeeshop about an hour from home while my wife & I are living with my in-laws for a few days.  Our new hardwood floors are being finished and we needed to be out of the house.

But it wasn’t by design.  The floors were actually finished a week ago… but then got scuffed up by the painters dragging their ladder across the floor to do their job.  Was the scuffing bad?  Not really… but enough that it bothered us.

We called the general contractor to express our displeasure.  Some people in his position would have argued, said the scuffs were to be expected, blamed it on others, etc.  Not our contractor.  His question was simple and straightforward, “What do I need to do to make you happy?”

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Harpeth Marketing has launched two new services this week…

The Lead Builder Program™, built on a series of Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing activities, provides Market Research firms with the opportunity to outsource much of their marketing & sales efforts for less than the cost of a full-time employee.  Our goal with this program is to deliver to our clients a steady stream of “project ready” sales leads.  Details at www.LeadBuilderProgram.com.

The Sellers Reality™ helps our clients to make sure they’re not looking through “rose colored glasses” when making decisions about their firms and the environments in which they compete.  We help them understand why their current clients buy from them, why lapsed clients stopped buying and what their competitors are up to.  Learn more at www.TheSellersReality.com.

I’ve worked with several research firms in the past year that made the commitment to hire their first sales rep.  That’s a big step for most firms… and to be successful with it, there are three key questions that need to be answered before the new rep comes on board.  [This is the first of a 3-part series to help answer those questions.]

Question #1: Inside or outside?

The decision for your first sales rep to be inside or outside is not an easy one – the implications are many.

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This is the third in a 3-part series on a few current consumer advertising campaigns that really got it right with their advertising – all of which were an excellent execution of a strong marketing strategy. [Yes, they’re B2C, but they illustrate very important marketing lessons.]

In the last two posts, we showcased Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. and Chik-Fil-A and the interesting work they were doing with their TV ads.  This week I want to talk about the law firm of Cordell & Cordell.

I first heard about them through their radio ads here in Nashville.  They are a firm that focuses on men in cases of divorce.  That, in itself, is very interesting.

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