Google has an awesome tool to help you figure out what's on customers' minds. People could care less about your company or products. They want to know you understand what makes them tick and you understand the problem they are trying to solve.

I've rarely, if ever, met an executive that was supremely confident their revenue machine was as lean and mean as other areas of their business. Typically, when I tell executives what I do, the flood gates open about their philosophy and approach to "sales and marketing". Following are the top four oversights I hear from executives that take a lot of profit away from their companies and impede their ability to increase revenue consistently.

Companies that blog receive 55% more website traffic than companies that don't blog[1].

Unless you think marketing isn't important, then I hope you realize that blogging and website traffic for that matter are mission critical for growing your business. Most people use the internet as part of their process to educate and inform themselves before they consider buying a product or service. "Many Americans begin their purchasing experience by doing online research to compare prices, quality, and the review of other shoppers"[2]

Most people read blogs early in the morning!

Sales, and marketing for that matter, have been overcomplicated. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or statistically significant research to know there are repercussions for indecision as well as decisions. Literally, you reap what you sow; or in some cases, don't sow?

In addition to running my demand generation agency, I'm accountable for all face-to-face sales calls. Right, wrong or indifferent, being in the trenches allows me to identify how to insure I'm delivering maximum value for CXOs as well as sales and marketing executives. I love selling because I love the feeling when you leave a meeting and the executive has half a page or more of notes and a handful of action items that resulted from our one hour conversation. Sadly, this is not the case for most people in a sales role.

I've spent countless hours explaining sales 2.0, marketing 2.0, SEO, social media, lead generation, lead nurturing and sales force development to business executives. More often than not, my passionate rants fall on deaf ears, the facts are ignored as the conversation shifts to what was done in the past and how my team can help them to the same old same old in a different way.

Game planning should happen before the game, not after.

Interesting conversations can develop in LinkedIn groups that you may feel inclined to share with colleagues or customers. It can be somewhat tricky figuring out how you can share a link to a discussion via social media.

• Introduce yourself
• Elevator pitch
• Can you meet, briefly
• I want to see if I can meet, uncover a problem and sell you on my wonderful features and benefits
• Do you want to meet? Do ya? Do ya? I know I can help!

irresistible |ˌiriˈzistəbəl|
adjective
- too attractive and tempting to be resisted : he found the delicious-looking cakes irresistible.
- too powerful or convincing to be resisted : she felt an irresistible urge to object.