Revenue Journal®

Some time ago, I wrote an article about how software buyers were mired in the "skepticism swamp." It's even worse now.

If you're selling software, you have to be able to overcome the massive amount of disbelief that has built up in buyers' minds, thanks to all the promises that have been made to them - and broken. Everyone promised higher productivity, increased efficiency, and plug-and-play. HA.

What everyone delivered was installation headaches, integration nightmares, missing-in-action service, and navigation that required that you know the program intimately before you could do anything useful with it.

Today, software buyers and users consider each purchase an investment - of time and grief, as well as the money.

There comes a time in the course of inevitable economic ups and downs, when "everyone" starts to feel like "things are going to hell in a hand basket." The media is filled with stories of business and industry failures, people start hoarding and cutting back on their expenses, sales that used to be easy become difficult, and company budgets are cut.

There is a sense of impending doom, and financial statistics are reported that reinforce that sense. We are in one of those periods now.

It doesn't really matter how we got here, or how much of it is real and how much is mass hysteria. Having been through a number of these periods, I've come to pay less and less attention to the "why."

The most accurate economic indicator I have ever found is "primary customer motivation." As I interview customers for clients, I learn what is driving them to make the decisions they are currently making. In times of uncertainty, there is usually one big, fear-based driver. In times of economic growth, more drivers come into play, such as the need for status, the need to solve a problem, the need to change one's lifestyle, and the need to experience something new.

I have also found that journalists and economists don't have a clue about "primary customer motivations" until it's obvious to everyone what is going on. And, you can be sure that if the facts conflict with their agenda, the agenda will overshadow the story. That's why any business owner who depends on the press or economists to "guide" him is always going to be a day late and a dollar short. Instead, if he was personally and regularly interviewing customers (or having someone he trusts do it for him), he'd be finding out what's really going on - six months before everyone else (including competitors).

In any economic situation, these primary customer motivation drivers determine what people are buying and how, as well as what they are deciding not to buy.

I am currently working with a couple of clients whose sales are being affected by current economic events. One client is in the luxury travel business and another is in the recreational boating business. In the former situation, high gas prices, higher food prices, and the fall of the dollar against the Euro are causing their customers to pull back on their buying decisions. In the latter situation, high gas prices and a concern about the economy are causing their customers to put off their next recreational boat purchase.

Of course, they're not the only ones feeling the pinch right now. If you are too, here's a recessionary rallying cry for you:

If you want more sales, get serious.

Serious about what?

Salespeople (or, I should say, order takers) who are used to taking calls all day are still having a hard time adjusting to the email-driven business world we live in now. The same is true of many small business owners.

The phone is no longer the "instrument of choice" for today's busy buyers. Their preferred way of contacting companies when they are interested in a product or service is via email. And yet, too many salespeople and entrepreneurs are still treating email as an intrusion into their busy day. Because they get so much email and spam, and because they don't want to spend all day typing notes to people, they just aren't giving incoming email buyers the attention that they deserve.

If your salespeople are struggling with, or ignoring, this issue, it helps for them to see the email scenario from the buyer's point of view. It will help them understand how just a few minutes spent responding can make the difference between closing a sale or losing a customer for life. Let's look at this from the perspective of a customer we'll call Jane.

There's a joke - you've probably heard one of the many versions of it - that I think of as the "demo" joke. My favorite version is the one starring Bill Gates:

Bill Gates died and found himself standing in front of St. Peter, who was sizing him up.

"Okay, what the Hell," said Bill. "Let's try down below first."

"Fast, right, cheap. Pick two."

Print shop owners used to like to post this little truism near the front desk of their shops. There's a lot of wisdom on those five words. If you do it too fast, it's likely to be wrong. If you take too much time obsessing over details, it isn't going to be fast. And if you get it cheap, you might also get it fast, but it probably won't be right.

The problem is, today's customers assume that they can get "all three" if they just look hard enough. Google has given them a virtual, endless, global shopping mall. If one vendor can't give them all three, they'll just keep looking. Click. Click. Click.

A depression is one of the worst things that can happen to the economy - it affects just about everyone, in every industry, in every country. Recessions, on the other hand, tend to hit a particular group of industries the hardest, with lesser "ripple effects" on others.

What's happening now, as everyone knows, is that lending institutions have stopped lending with wild abandon. The first people to be effected by this are those in the real estate business - real estate agents, lawyers, title companies, and all the others who gain income from real estate activity. Their income - and their spending - decreases. Many decide to leave the business. There is a personnel shift from the real estate industry to other industries, where the money is still flowing. Until they are securely ensconced in their new positions, and have recovered financially, they are still cautious about their spending.

Recessions affect other industries, too, because of the recessionary drumbeat. The news media is always prowling around looking for the latest disaster. As you know, right now they're writing stories about the "subprime lending crisis," profiling people who have been affected. This steady diet of bad economic news affects everyone. Anyone who views their house as their main economic security will be more cautious about their spending. They will take longer to make decisions. They will want more information before making a commitment. They will more carefully compare one option against another, and will be more likely to postpone major spending decisions.

Consumer spending will slow, and so will business-to-business spending. People who run businesses are consumers themselves, and they follow economic news closely. They become more cautious about their spending, too. Their employees see the boss pulling back, and they tell their families, "Things are getting tight at work. Better wait on buying that new car."

This classic, recessionary mass psychology will affect your own outlook, the outlook of your employees, and your revenue stream.

So why am I saying that recessions can be good for you? Because they provide a unique opportunity for improvement.

I really enjoy making sales departments more productive. It's one of the most rewarding aspects of what I do, because there's always so much to improve, and because even a few changes can make a huge difference in a company's revenues. As we slip further into group-recession-think, it's time to look at what an economic slowdown really means and what you can do to make sure your business continues to grow - in spite of the persistent recession drumbeat. There are a number of things you can do to improve your sales levels in this economic environment.

1) Ignore the recession drumbeat. It's easy to be spooked by the latest news on the economy. Even if you are in an industry that is directly affected by a slowdown, being distracted from your normal revenue-producing tasks - and lowering your sights - will only make matters worse. Make a personal, definite decision that your business will be an exception to the overall trend.

It is possible to be going "up" when everyone else is going "down" - I've done it myself several times in my career, so I speak from personal experience. Your two biggest enemies are always distraction and fear.

John Smith is a typical customer in the market for a fairly high-end product, one that requires a salesperson to finalize the deal. He has done his research on the web - he's spent hours, in fact, researching. Now he has a couple of questions for the salesperson to answer. Otherwise, he is ready to buy. He decides that the best way to get the answers he needs is to go to an industry tradeshow.

I've been interviewing "John Smiths" for a client, and one of them described what happened next, using these words:

"I had to defend my wallet and my family against The Pitch."

He was there with his wife, and as he was trying to get answers to his questions, the salesperson kept trying to close the sale.

From the customer's perspective, this is irritating. Sleazy. Totally inappropriate. You're just asking someone questions, and the whole time, they keep trying to sneak around to the side of you and grab your wallet out of your back pocket.

Imagine that you are going to have a house constructed, and while it is under construction, you want to insure the construction site. Your contractor refers you to an insurance salesperson he knows. You meet with the person, you like him, and you proceed to give him the information he needs to proceed with a quote.

As the weeks go by, however, you decide that you aren't going to do business with that insurance broker. Why? Because he just wasn't working hard for the sale. He was friendly, but not professional. It takes too long for him to respond to requests. The information he provides doesn't match your situation nor answer your specific questions.

You end up finding another broker, who responds quickly, thoroughly, professionally to every question you ask him. You end up telling the contractor that you appreciate the referral to his insurance buddy, but that you will be using a different insurance broker.

There are two kinds of salespeople in the world. One knows that the customer is just trying to get some questions answered, and does what he can to answer those questions. The other sees the customer's questions as "objections" to be overcome - obstacles to his making the sale and getting a commission.

In other words, in the first case, the customer is right - right to be making sure the product will meet his needs. Right to ask questions. Rightfully entitled to getting honest answers to those questions until he has enough information to make a good decision.

In the second case, the salesperson behaves as if the customer is just plain wrong. During the conversation with the customer he is, by turns, evasive, dismissive, and downright rude as he spits out answers. He is combative during the question-asking process. He interrupts the customer, argues with the customer, and treats the customer like an idiot.

A recent experience with such a salesperson convinced me that these salespeople end up in sales because they love to argue but they're not smart enough (or industrious enough) to get through law school. They are wanna-be lawyers.

Fear is a powerful motivator. Entrepreneurs use fear to motivate themselves; CEOs often use fear to motivate themselves and their employees. After a while, it's easy to consider fear as a valuable tool, a friend. Too bad it isn't true.

Every business starts with a dream. Every buyer starts the buying process with a dream.

Every business can turn into a nightmare. And, every buying process - especially those involving large, expensive, important purchases - can turn into a nightmare.

These dreams - and fears of nightmares - drive the decisions and actions of both business owners and buyers.

We've all seen this at work in extreme cases, where an individual will let their own fantasy world overwhelm reality to the point where they lose their job or their business, and the people who supported them along the way.

But these situations are rare. The more usual, day-to-day situation is one where the seller and buyer are trying to find common ground, to negotiate a realistic solution where everyone can be happy.

Let's say you're a vendor in a developing country selling some kind of product or service to customers in more developed countries. You know you can provide what the customers there need, but you're not sure how get the attention of the right kinds of buyers, and when you do get a lead, you find it too difficult to close the sale. Something is standing in your way. That something is the negative reputation that your country or industry might have in the mind of the buyer.

This article will address both of these challenges while looking at the process from the buyer's perspective. The advice in this article will help anyone selling any type of high-risk product or service - even in well-established markets - as the dynamics are similar.

It took a while before the Web really changed the way people bought things, but it has happened. Now people go to the Web first and research the heck out of a subject before they buy.

They scrutinize, analyze, and agonize. They Google and re-Google, fine-tuning their search term until they start getting the desired results. They know exactly what they want and they keep searching until they finally find it, then compare their options, read the reviews, and consider the price and the functions. Once they are satisfied they have found the right product and are comfortable with the company selling it, they place an order.

I'm sorry to say that, over and over, I am finding business owners struggling to make sales because their marketers - in-house or outside - are trying to use yesterday's marketing and selling methods on today's buyers, who have definitely moved on.

Buyers have specific questions. If you're not giving them specific answers, you're not going to capture those sales. All technology aside, this is the biggest difference between "old" marketing thinking and "new" marketing thinking.

The best way to illustrate this is with an example.

There's a certain type of entrepreneur who becomes obsessed with a product idea, and sets up a business to sell it. It's always a guy (yes, for some reason, it's always a guy) who can never understand why "everyone can't see the wisdom of this idea" and why "someone can't give me the money to get this business off the ground."

I hear from these gentlemen because of my blog and book, and my consulting company. The most recent person who contacted me said he had also contacted a famous "marketing guru" company, but that "they won't give me the time of day."

This most recent person says that he lost a great deal of money trying to sell websites for a website creation franchise operation. He is now in debt, and is trying to get out of debt selling a gasoline additive. He tells me that he wants marketing help. But when I make specific suggestions, he responds to my email with more detail about how he got into debt and how he is a nice person who was raised to treat people with respect and courtesy, and how he just needs marketing help. In other words, he asks for advice, advice is given, and then he ignores it and asks for advice or sympathy.

Last week we discussed two of the traits of the perfect sales manager: loyalty (first to the customer, then the company, then the sales force), and consistency. This week we will look at the remaining key characteristics. The perfect sales manager is also empathetic and process-oriented.

• Empathetic

  Note that I said empathetic, not sympathetic. When you empathize with someone, you listen carefully and understand their problem, but you retain your ability to make decisions that are not driven by their emotions.

At any given time, in addition to my Fortune 100 and medium-sized company clients, I always have a couple of entrepreneurs on my client list. I enjoy helping startups, and increasing the revenues of existing small businesses.

Typically, someone who starts a business is an expert in a particular area. In other words, their core competency doesn't lie in marketing and sales. As a result, they are constantly searching for any trick or technique that will help them make more sales.

This search - and in some cases it is a desperate search - makes them easy prey for any halfway plausible idea. They are constantly reading articles and books, talking to friends, and listening to vendors selling ad space, website design, direct mail, and so on. I often get questions by email - "I just talked to So and So, and they said..." Or, "I just read an article that said..." The questions are always about doing a specific thing that will supposedly help their sales increase.

The sad thing is, it's never one thing. And it's never the thing that you just read or that someone just told you. 100% of the time, the answer is right in front of you. Yes, I said 100% of the time. Always. Here's how you find the answers you seek.

Long-time readers are probably wondering if I've gone off my rocker with that title. No worries, I'm not suggesting that you do anything stupid or lewd. But there is something that you can learn from any performer, even the most superficial ones.

Having come from a show business family, I learned at an early age about "stage presence." It really boils down to the fact that when you're on stage, you're in character. Even if you are a bit player in a crowd scene and you're the person at the very back of the crowd, you are still on stage. You must be in character and engaged the entire time you are on stage. If the main character in a musical is singing a solo, and you are part of the "listening crowd," your role as a listener is just as important as the soloist's role.

What does this have to do with sales? Imagine that you are part of a sales team, pitching a potential client. Someone in your group is presenting.

A group of consultants are in a conference room, pitching a new client. One of the consultants is making the pitch. We'll call him the salesperson.

So far, the client has been alert, sitting up straight, listening, eyes fixed on the presentation being displayed in the conference room. Then the salesperson says something that disturbs the client, and the client shifts in his chair. His brows furrow a little. His eyes are no longer open wide, but squinting slightly. His hand comes up to the front of his face, palm on his chin, fingers over his lips.

The client has just sent a signal to the presenter. It is an unmistakable signal, if the presenter is properly attuned to body language. The signal says, "Hmmm. Wait a minute. This doesn't sit well with me."

Here are some of the most common barriers to revenue that we encounter as we help our clients. Are you making one of these mistakes?

Your company name doesn't tell them what you sell. We call our company Zhivago Marketing Partners for this very reason. It would have been just as easy to call it Zhivago & Company or something similar - but that would not have answered the first, most basic question: "What does this company sell?"

If you're just starting out, make sure your name clearly indicates the type of product you sell.

If you've already invested too much in your non-specific name to change it now, then add a tagline to your logo that says what you sell. Keep it short - no more than five words. Tell them what you sell, using the words people would use to find you.

The longer you head up a company, the more it becomes like a private club. You go to work, and are immediately swarmed by messages, issues, meetings, random hallway and instant messaging conversations - all from members of your own club.

Everyone in the club knows everyone else, everyone knows who the facilitators are - and who are the obstructionists. They know the helpful ones and the spoiled brats. You spend your entire day interacting with everyone in the club, people who make you feel good about yourself, your company, how well your people are doing - and how happy your customers are.

Here's the danger: After a while, it gets harder and harder for anyone outside the club to get what they need from anyone inside the club. Your days are consumed by your interactions with each other.

We had a lot of reasons for moving from Silicon Valley to the New England coast, about ten years ago. None of them had anything to do with the weather, though we liked the idea of having "seasons." We also wanted to live on the water for less than, say, seven million dollars. We had many family members here, and both of us were born here - although we also both moved to California when we were young. Many of our clients were on the East Coast. And it looked like it would be a great place to sail.

This background sets the stage for my little salesman's story - a perfect example of selling the wrong way, using the "tell, tell, tell" method instead of the "ask then tell" method.

In the course of our search for a house in New England, one April day we were being driven around some waterfront neighborhoods in Connecticut. The real estate broker was a typical congenial salesperson, a large man who had obviously enjoyed his share of drink, food, and smoke. He was chatting away as he drove us around. We didn't say much, because he was doing all the talking.

I've mentioned before that I buy a lot of software online. Recently I undertook an extensive search for software I could use to efficiently build outlines for books and other large, complex documents, because the outlining function in Word is pitiful and slows...the...creative...flow...to...a...crawl, and has a klutzy expand/contract outline function.

I must have looked at 25 programs, and trialed at least 10. For all of you out there selling software online, I have some very specific advice for you, from a buyer's point of view.

We are surrounded by an endless din and clatter of information, in the form of warnings, predictions, stories, statistics, news, and advice.

The longer I'm in business, the more I'm convinced that nothing "out there" matters as much as what is going on in your customers' heads, your own head, and the processes that you create to help your customers do business with you. Everything else - politics, natural disasters, man-made disasters, new inventions, stock markets, and the daily news - is hardly worth your time.

I heard someone say recently that you should spend 80% of your time on the top three most important things in your life. The sad fact is, it's incredibly easy to get sucked into spending 80% of our time on the least important things in our lives, which is why Stephen Covey's 7 Habits book continues to be a best-seller.

As a CEO or entrepreneur, customers should be on your "top three things" list, because if you have no customers, you have no revenue. If you have no revenue, you really don't have a sustainable business. So the first order of any business is to understand what customers are thinking and doing.

In reality, how much time do you actually spend, every day, focused intently on your customers?

I get a lot of calls from PR folks. Each call is a sales call, which is why I'm talking about it here. Anyone who sells for a living - and that includes CEOs and entrepreneurs - can learn from the mistakes that PR houses make. This article will also help you manage your PR folks, who are probably making these same mistakes.

PR people call me because they have a story they want me to "buy" and write about. Their methods, for the most part, are pitiful. It's sad, because just about every person who calls is a decent human being who wants to do a good job.

Most of the calls come from young females who have been hired to call editors, reporters, and bloggers and try to line up an appointment with the company's CEO. They must all attend the same school of Dysfunctional PR, because they all say the same thing:

Hi, my name is Jennifer. I'm calling because XYZ company is rolling out a new widget. Did you get my press release? Would you like to interview the CEO?

I'm sad to say that they've been saying this same thing to me since 1984, when my monthly columns started appearing in a marketing magazine. After hearing the same pitiful pitch for 23 years now, it would be easy to be impatient and cross. But I was young and in PR once, so I try to help them.

The customers I interview for my clients range from engineers to programmers to CPAs to physicians to store owners to sailors to dealers to system integrators to women who buy skincare and makeup to salespeople to marketers to CEOs to...well, you get the picture. Just about everybody.

They always have something interesting to say. In fact, you'd be surprised - shocked, even - if you heard how much your own customers have to say about your product and company.

If you interview people skillfully, it's easy to get them started, and once they get started, they can talk for an hour or two about a product, company, and industry. They can tell you what they like about it, what they wish vendors would do, what else they've tried, and what they thought about those products. They will tell you what was frustrating or convenient about the buying process.

They can tell you how they looked for the product, the questions they had, and the tradeoffs they had to resolve before they spent the money. They can tell you the trends they see in the industry, not just based on their own needs, but by observing what others are doing and buying. They can also tell you what would make the most difference for them.

For example, the women I've been interviewing lately for a cosmetic/skin care company have mentioned that they wish cosmetic companies didn't come up with new colors every year.

Whenever you read an article about a merger and acquisition, it's usually a lightly edited version of the official press release. What you don't read about are the bloody backstage battles that took place as the stakeholders maneuvered, and manipulated the detailed terms of the deal. Nor do you read about the mess after the deal.

Usually there's a big dog and a small dog, whether the parties involved admit it or not. The small dog is hoping to line his pockets, and the big dog is hoping to pick those same pockets.

After the deal is signed, the revenues that were roaring along at the small dog company often come to a screeching halt.

In any sales situation, the seller wants the buyer to buy. The buyer, meanwhile, is considering the purchase - and alternative courses of action. Most sales training gurus would call those alternatives "objections," and salespeople are trained to "counter" those objections.

But this usually backfires.

Here are some typical "alternative courses of action" that could be floating around in the buyer's mind as she listens to a sales pitch:

I'm in the midst of rewriting about 50 "sales plays" for a client. These are intranet-based instructions for salespeople making outgoing calls to potential clients. Each "sales play" describes the product or product combination being sold (the "offering"), the target audience for that offering, what's included in the offering, why the client should be interested, and suggested voicemail, phone call, and email copy that the salesperson can use when pitching the offering to a client.

Rewriting these sales plays is reminding me how impossible it is to be a salesperson who is depending on copy written by copywriters who have never had to make a cold call. The plays I'm changing, although each one is written about a different product, all use the same language. They all talk about the customer's need and the product's benefits.

True story, happened this month.

A man has recently taken up the game of golf. He is working hard on perfecting his swing, visiting the driving range every few days to hit a bucket of balls as straight and as far as he can.

As the fall has turned to winter, he has found it necessary to wear some sort of winter gloves while practicing his swing at the driving range. Normal cold-weather gloves are either too thick or not "grippy" enough to hold a club properly. So the man decides to make a special trip to a "golf warehouse" store. It's a bit of a drive, but he goes there because he knows it has a large selection of golf clothing and accessories. He is expecting to find all of the different models of winter gloves, and try them on.

Let's stop this specific, real-life story for a second and look at the broader implications. Here we have someone with a definite need. Someone who has decided what would meet that need, and is going out of his way to purchase the best solution to that need.

This is the beginning of the buying process, a moment in time that happens literally billions of times a day across the globe.

When I'm hired to help a company increase its revenues, clients come to me assuming that the answer will lie beyond existing products and markets. However, what usually happens is we find significant growth opportunities for existing products in existing markets.

There are several benefits to finding new revenue in existing products and markets:

The president of a small company recently sent me an email. "We've done well in a lot of areas of business, but what we haven't done is sorely inhibiting our growth. We need to master marketing and are committed to doing just that. Will you point me to the best learning tools?"

I'll bet you can guess where I pointed him…right back to his own customers. Here was my reply:

Well, it's that time again. Elections. Always causes a bit of a dip in productivity, and a slowdown of the buying process, while everyone waits to see how the election will turn out.

Welcome to Distraction City.

In our news-dominated culture, distractions interrupt buying patterns. The larger the distraction, the larger the interruption. I tend to think of these periods as distraction-driven mini-dips. If there are a number of them in succession - especially those involving armed conflict or a terrorist attack - the dips can turn into a recession.

During these distraction-driven mini-dips, it's more difficult to generate revenue. Everyone still goes to work, meetings are still held, contracts are still signed, but if you're on the selling side, it always feels like the world is sliding sideways. As you attempt to finalize a contract, it's like talking to someone who is talking to someone else on a cell phone. Or who is pretending to be paying attention to you while simultaneously watching a movie. Sure, they will answer your questions, but they're not "all there." People are no where near as adept at multi-tasking as they think they are, especially if they have an emotional stake in the other task.

It's not just the buyers who are distracted. Sellers are distracted, too.

Major opportunity for you

As I help CEOs increase their revenues, I often find that they are not aware how inefficient their companies are, from the point of view of their buyers and business partners. They don't realize how much their own systems are broken - and how much those broken systems reduce their sales.

Why is this? Because CEOs depend too much on their employees for information. When I interview their buyers and business partners, the picture painted by those interviews is completely different than the picture painted by the employees.

It's not that the employees are being deceptive. It's that they assume that the CEO is aware of the problems, and is not going to change them. They try to make the best of their situation, devising workarounds for some of the inefficiencies, and just accepting others. They are also insulated from the effect that pitiful processes have on buyers and business partners. Sure, they hear the complaints, but they aren't aware of anything they can do about them.

One of the biggest barriers to your company's revenue growth is the battle that goes on every single day between marketers and salespeople. Each has legitimate grievances. Each group pays lip service to getting along - especially in your presence - but they really don't respect each other and they usually work at cross-purposes to each other. The smallest and the largest companies have this problem.

In the third article, we'll describe the solution and how you can put it to work.

This is part number two of a three-part article.
In Part 1, we told the dog's tale - the frustrations experienced by a salesperson who wanted to sell more, but never seemed to be able to get the necessary selling tools from marketing (the cats). This week, we look at the problem from the cat's perspective.

Marketing: Cool cats get cranky
As the head of marketing for a succession of companies in Silicon Valley, I worked hard to give salespeople what they needed. I made sure they had tools for every stage of the selling process. I enjoyed the work, but felt I could do more good for more salespeople if I worked in an agency. After working in a couple of agencies, I decided to go off on my own. My husband and I opened a tech marketing agency. It was April Fool's Day, 1979.

This is part number three of a three-part article.
First we told the salesperson's sad tale, then looked at marketing and selling from the marketer's perspective. This week, we provide a step-by-step solution. If you actually do this, your dogs and cats will finally find common ground and start working together to increase your sales.

How to stop the squabbling and supercharge your sales
The secret to getting your salespeople and marketing people to work together is to stop the interdepartmental, political arguments about the selling process and start focusing everyone's attention on the customer's buying process. This is the only way to stop the political tug-of-war.

Here's how you do it.

If you haven't been to the launch site for NXP, a spin-off from Philips, take a look - and prepare to be blown away.

The site is beautiful. Breathtaking, even. The Guy in the Green Shirt (below), who will talk to you while you're on the site, does a pretty good job of being professional and yet friendly, in a geeky/retro kind of way. So friendly, in fact, that when you return to the site he will welcome you back.

Most business activities can be managed in a fairly straightforward fashion. You decide what you're going to do, you create a project plan - complete with cost and timing - you get the right people to execute the plan, you build in checkpoints, and then you set the wheels in motion.

The chances of these activities being successful are fairly high. The barriers to success are internal politics, unrealistic expectations, and mismanagement or ineptitude as the project progresses. These problems can be overcome with effective management. Politics can be squashed by managers who are forthright and goal-driven. Unrealistic expectations can be avoided by seasoned managers who have "been there, done that," and they know what can go wrong. Mismanagement isn't a problem when the managers gather accurate data and make sound decisions. Ineptitude shouldn't get in the way - even when it is well-disguised - because good managers can spot ineptitude a mile away.

There's a conflict between the information you want to get from your potential buyers - in order to market to them effectively - and the fact that asking for that information can prevent them from interacting with your website or making a purchase. Asking for too much information too soon is like the owner of a retail store "greeting" you at the entrance and forcing you to sign a guestbook before you can start shopping. Most people would decline and leave the store, which is exactly what is happening on your website - except you can't "see" them leaving without resorting to in-depth web stat log analysis.

How do you find out what you need to know without placing barriers in their way?

Kimberley Deane makes beautiful, reasonably priced jewelry. Her photography skills are top-notch. Her website and printed materials are stunning.

The only problem is, Kimberley hates to sell. She'd rather spend most of her day creating her wares, not "selling." Most artisan entrepreneurs, especially those who open up one-person shops in order to sell what they love to create, hate to sell. Selling is a distasteful, intrusive activity. It grosses them out and causes them to break out in a cold sweat.

Kimberley wants to increase her sales, but she didn't want to have to sell in order to do it. Once I understood her problem, I was able to tell her that she doesn't need to "sell" in order to increase her sales. She just has to make it easy for people to buy from her. That was a comforting thought for Kimberley. Then we started working on exactly how she would do this.

EVA is a system that lets salespeople (or anyone else, for that matter) use their cell phones to call in after a meeting with a client and get all sorts of things done. They simply call a number, give commands (such as "create an email"), and start talking. Their voice is recorded, and later listened to by a human being, who enters the data into a sales automation or CRM system.

Salespeople can set up appointments, say what happened in the meeting--including next steps--and provide information for their expense reports. They can also instruct the data entry person to send an email to the person they just visited, as they are leaving the prospect's parking lot.

Entrepreneurs, listen up. You may feel like you are alone in your struggle to increase your sales. You're not. Every single entrepreneur struggles with the same issues. And every conversation I have with an entrepreneur follows a similar pattern, and has a similar happy ending, once I show him where his solution lies.

The first conversation always starts out with the entrepreneur telling me what he has been doing about marketing and sales, and what he thinks he wants to try next. His options always involve decisions about marketing vehicles ("Should I do PR? What about my website? Should I follow the advice of this person selling direct mail services? What about this local agency that is trying to get me to run radio ads?")

I listen until he has given me the whole picture. It doesn't take long, because 35 years of selling every type of product helps me fill in the blanks--if he's selling direct, I know what his business model looks like; if he's selling through partners, I know right away the problems he's having in that area.

After asking him a number of questions - including "Are you interviewing your customers on a regular basis?", I can see why he is struggling with his marketing decisions. The problem is, he's focusing on his selling process.

"Demand generation" is the new name for "marketing." It has its roots in every salesman's fantasy. Salespeople are happiest when their product is in demand, when they're writing orders rather than having to make cold calls and trying to convince people to buy. The sweetest phrase a salesman can say to himself is, "I'm in demand!"

But "demand generation" has nothing to do with the customer's buying process. The only time "demand" can be applied to the customer's buying process is when a child is demanding something from a grownup. Picture the full-blown, in-store temper tantrum employed by the three-year-old, or the more subtle--but just as irritating--Major Sulk employed by a teenager using more "sophisticated" methods. But even in these cases, the child doing the demanding is not even the final decision-maker.

Every day, potential buyers are calling your company for the first time. They are also calling competing companies. This is the "first contact test."

If you are like most companies, your first-time callers will be confronted with a recorded voice that tells them to "select from the following options."

They must then pay careful attention to the options presented. As the voice rattles off the choices, #2 may sound hopeful, but not quite right. They try to remember #2 while they listen to all the other options, still hoping that one of them will lead to what they need. When the voice finally gets to #9, then says "press pound to hear the menu again," they realize that none of the options were appropriate and they are not going to be able to get human help by pressing zero.

If this is how your company's current system works, and you'd like to grow your sales, scrap your system.