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The Only Real Secret Sauce is Paying Customers

This is not the 1990s. It's no longer easier to get capital from investors than revenue from customers.

Unfortunately, we may have forgotten how to find revenue for our businesses. In 2003, all business people will have to actually go out and sell things to prospective customers. In case you haven't noticed, the phones stopped ringing at the end of 2000.

Look no further for your business magic.

Customers and the revenue they produce are the only real secret sauce. If you have paying customers, you have the business world by the string. Revenue gives your business choices. If I were creating a "Ten Commandments" of business, the first one would be "go forth and sell."

Adam Hecktman at Microsoft in Chicago believes that the word "selling" has a negative connotation. He added: "It has been so dysfunctional in the past that the term just doesn't do justice to the right way to establish business relationships in this environment."

He defines selling as "helping customers achieve their business objectives. It's not just for reps and account managers any more. In my own organization, which is a mixture of technical and business development folks, everyone is focused on vision alignment with their customers. The days of this being relegated to "sales staff" is a thing of the past."

In a small business, one thing can be counted on: everyone needs to sell. Only sales will build your business. Nothing else. Forget all the fancy marketing positioning of your company or the design of great logos and stationary. Think of your business as you in a lifeboat and the economy as a rough sea. Your only choice is for everyone to row in the same direction.

Jackie Huba, co-author of "Creating Customer Evangelists," goes further.

"Everyone in a business is really in sales and marketing whether they are in these departments or not," she said. "Anyone in the company who has direct contact with customers and prospects has a chance of influencing the buying decision of prospects.

"The receptionist, the accounting manager and the technical support person all have the ability to develop a rapport with future customers. [Managers] should counsel all employees that their ultimate goal is to develop relationships with customers [rather than] just sitting in a cubicle "doing their job"."

Bruce Freud at Chicago-based LiquidGeneration said: "All our employees interact with clients. Our creative team currently does its own account management because they are intimately involved with the brand management."

If we forgot how to sell in the 1990s, how do we regain this skill and learn again what we forgot?

First, we need to remember what Chuck Gitles of National City Bank tells us. He agrees with Huba and believes that a business needs "to look at every point a customer touches an employee. The employee needs to be ready to sell the business at every such opportunity. In banking, touch points go much further than the account officer.

"Included are secretaries, documentation officers, tellers, customer service reps and so on. Each person in the chain has to make the most of each contact and enhance the brand. Our product is the same as the next bank: green money. We differentiate ourselves in creativity and customer service. The people who provide the customer service must sell that message at each and every opportunity."

Secondly, we need to simply go out there and sell. You can try to take a selling class if it helps you learn these skills, but keep your expectations low since it's typically not easy to apply techniques that you have learned in a "live" situation.

With the help of a partner or mentor, find a new prospect and go along on the sales call. Listen and learn until it's your turn next time. When you fail, ask the prospect why he or she didn't buy your product and move on to the next one.

The best door-to-door salesmen of the last century used this tried and true method of improving their sales skills. When one door closed in their faces, they went next door and knocked on the next one. It certainly gives you the practice you need.

Selling is a scary process. I know. I have sat many times in a room by myself staring at the phone hoping it would make the cold calls by itself. We often think that a "no" from a customer reflects who we are. Many times we think it's a rejection of us. It's not. It's a reflection only that this particular prospect doesn't need your particular product now.

It doesn't mean that he or she won't need it in the future. It doesn't mean that the person doesn't like or respect you or think your product stinks. If you get a no, decide if it makes sense to keep in touch with the prospect for a future sale. If not, forget the person and move on to someone else who may want to do business with you.

Finally, we need to ensure that each team member is contributing to the bottom line of the company on a daily basis.

Every employee should ask himself or herself this question every day: "Did I make money for the company today?" In any entrepreneurial venture, there is simply no room to put people in the "overhead" category. You are unable to have anyone on the team who isn't vital to obtaining or retaining customers.

Huba is emphatic when she states this old adage: "People like to buy from people they like. People are loyal to people. When all employees are evangelists for their own company, customers are more likely to buy."