It's been said that sales quotas (whether they be weekly, monthly or quarterly) are one of the biggest obstacles to effective sales performance. The rational is that the pressure to meet the deadline causes sales people to attempt to "hurry up " the sales process. They typically do this by presenting their solutions way too early in the process.

As all of us know who have attended any sort of comprehensive sales training program in the last 10 years, presenting your solution before you have uncovered the key problems and made the prospective client lust after your solution (ok perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but you get my point) is one of the biggest obstacles to success in selling. This issue has implications and lessons for the world of marketing.

This is what I mean. When I review marketing materials, sales letters, websites and so forth, I ask the logical question "What do you want the reader to do once they've finished reading this?"

The answer is invariably that they would like the reader to call to learn more about their services. When you think about it, that is a huge request. Consider this, someone you don't know, who you've never spoken with, receives your letter or visits your website. What are the odds that based on what they read they'd want to actually talk with you?

OK, perhaps if they're desperate they might. But really, come on, how many of your prospects are truly desperate? The reality is that it's extremely unlikely anyone is going to pick up the phone based on a sales letter or some copy on a website. Why? They're afraid of being sold something. As it's often been said, "We love to buy stuff; we just don't like being sold."

So why do we persist in having a marketing strategy that revolves around the hope that people will "call us up" after they read our sales letter or visit our website? Because it seems like it's quicker. We don't have any patience for anything that has more than one step to it. But what we perceive as the quickest way to make sales is really an illusion. The reality is that we're making life harder (not easier) for ourselves. Much the same way as the sales rep thinks he can expedite the selling process by cutting to the chase and just telling the prospect about how wonderful his services are, consultants and small business owners think that they can likewise speed up the process by having the call to action be call me now! And they're invariably disappointed.

So what's the alternative? When it comes to marketing your services it's crucial that you think of it as a two-step process.

Step one is How Can I Get People To Express interest in what I do?

Step two is: How can I convert large percentages of those who have expressed interest to buy my services?

Thus the "selling" is done in step two, not step one. (Except that you naturally have to "sell" prospects on expressing that initial interest.) So if this makes sense, why are so many people reluctant to do it? Simple. It adds another step to the process. It adds a bit more time. And we're just not very patient.

As I've said countless times before, marketing isn't complicated. (Although some of us seem compelled to make it so.) It's simply a matter of thinking about marketing your services using two steps. Not one. And that requires patience. Hope this give you some good food for thought.