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Wow, what a title! For those of you who are already a bit wary, I challenge you to continue reading; if not for the ideas and thoughts herein, then at least out of pure curiosity. Before you go any further, let’s agree on a couple of things first: a. 80-90% of leads (from activities such as trade shows, advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, etc…) do not have an immediate need at the time that they are generated;

I am often asked what the difference is between sales and marketing. Marketing researches the opportunity, prepares the strategy, produces the tools to inform the prospect and places the potential sale on the table. The Salesperson then picks up the ball and confirms the opportunity, contributes to the strategy, uses the tools to inform the prospect and moves the opportunity off the table and into the cash register.

Everyone knows that the first step towards any sale is identifying a need. The key question, of course, is how to do that.

Simply put, there are 2 types of needs:

What’s the #1 thing you should be doing to drive more sales in today’s crazy-busy world? It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot these days.

To find out, what I think is most crucial, check out this 90-second video.

Situation 1-A business has been a going concern for 15 years with a concept so strong they have franchised stores nationally and are moving swiftly into the US. Success was achieved with very few marketing materials. Management considered that given their success without marketing, the possibilities with marketing were very encouraging. They set out to prepare and execute a first class, professional marketing program. After a long development process and much internal discussion, initial marketing tools were prepared. Some franchisees took a wait and see approach. Other stores began to use the new tools and sales took off. The head office is now moving ahead with additional marketing tools and most franchisees are anxiously awaiting the new materials.

In my sales management career, I would bet that I’ve seen about 5,000 resumes for sales people. Yet, I still haven’t seen one that shows someone who has achieved 40% of quota. Every single resume shows 100%, 200%, 2,000,000% of goal. Where are all of the people who have had less than stellar sales performances? Did they all leave the sales profession? If all of the resumes that I saw truly represented the performance of the individual, the U.S. economy would be thriving to say the least. Every company would be enjoying record revenue performances.

There is a continuing discussion, or maybe a debate, or outright arguments as to whether sales, professional selling, is an art form or a science. The real challenge is that the answer is not black and white, unlike other disciplines where there are definitive delineators, sales is not so black of black and white, leaving a lot of room for debate, and more importantly for mistakes, and hurt feelings. Given the fact that the playing field is mostly grey, it is hard to persuade people, especially the unwilling, that they could be more productive if they were to sell in either the black or the white, rather than drift in an endless sea of grey.