Years ago I learned what I believe is the basic rule for sales success. Here it is: "If they don't know about you, they can't buy from you!". No matter how good your product or service is - or how good your face-to-face selling skills are - it doesn't matter if no one knows about you. It's called "marketing"!

Something else I learned as well: if they know the "right" things about you then the "selling" part gets really easy.

The truth is I never really liked that "selling" thing. You know, me vs. the unwilling prospect who finally falls to the overwhelming power of my incredible sales techniques. Too much work and way too much stress. I like it better when prospects come to me. So I learned to become a "marketer" as well as a "salesman". I started looking for simple, creative ways to "get my message out" to as many prospects and customers as possible; to drive enthusiastic prospects to my door. Today I follow my 80/20 rule: 80% marketing time, 20% selling time.

As I travel around, I find that many salespeople think that marketing and sales are separate, that it's the job of the company to create new leads (marketing) and the job of salespeople to close them (selling). What a perfect world that would be! Truth is that every salesperson needs to learn to do both jobs - market and sell in your own territory.

Bottom Line: don't rely on someone else to do the 80% for you. If they don't know about you, they can't buy from you. If they know about you, they'll come and buy from you.