Where are you stuck? Choosing where to focus

Marketing and sales encompasses four basic steps, which take the prospect from suspect to sale. First, you'll need to fill the pipeline with leads - appropriate people to contact. This list is made up of people you know can use your service. When you don't have enough people to contact, you are stuck at the "fill the pipeline" stage. You need to find more people to talk to.

The second step is following up. Do you have you a list of leads that you haven't talked to in the last three months? Then you are stuck in the "following up" stage. Time to develop a follow up plan.

Are you having trouble getting from follow-up to a presentation? Do you have enough presentations to keep your business growing? If not, you need to focus on getting presentations. This is the third step. Watch your ratios of leads to presentations. Work on increasing your percentage of presentations and make sure you have enough contacts to generate the presentations you need.

Finally, are you closing enough sales? Concentrate on improving your sales ratio by varying your approach and re-examining your qualifying criteria. Are you actually talking to the people who have a need you can fill, the money to fill it, the urgency and the decision-making authority? If not, go back to your "filling the pipeline" step and re-think your contact list.

Once you figure out where you are stuck, you'll know what you need to do next.

Find more clients who are like your best clients

What do you know about your customers? Do you know which ones are the most profitable? Have you developed a written profile of your best clients?

Your profile should include where they live and work, what their families are like, where they shop, what publications they read, who their friends are, their hobbies and interests, and more.

Talk to your best customers and get to know them. Because your marketing job is to keep them happy - and find more just like them.