If not, it’s time to get a better handle on your advertising’s ROI. After all, why waste money buying advertising that isn’t working?

You need to look at two things: which specific ads bring in customers, and which advertising media results in new business. An ad placed in a weekly shopper-type publication may draw new business week after week, while the same ad place in a local, tabloid-format newspaper may not attract any new customers. Or, vice versa.

You can find out which ads and media are producing customers by tracking responses to your ads. …read more at How To Tell Which Ads Are Working – SmallBizResource.com, published 5 March 2009.

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“The idea that they don’t want to talk to salespeople isn’t true,” insists Illig, a senior consultant with FranklinCovey’s Sales Performance Group. “They just don’t want to talk to all salespeople.”

Clients want a competent salesperson focused on their numbers and needs, not on his or her own sales objectives, says Illig. They want an efficient sales process that results in good decisions that work to their benefit.

“And the process should add value to customers by exploring choices and assessing the impact of those choices so clients can decide with confidence,” he explains. “Because at the highest level, the biggest fear clients have is that someone will talk them into a poor decision and a bad outcome.” ..read more at Making the Most of Your Sales Pitches – NFIB.com, published 4 March 2009

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Businesses cannot exist without customers, so it’s sadly ironic that many, if not most, businesses, actually understand so little about them. As a company grows, a smaller and smaller percentage of the staff interacts with the customers. In fact, those folks on the “front line” (think call centers, service counters, retail stores) are typically among the lowest-paid and have the least authority.

Meanwhile, back at headquarters fundamental decisions are made with extremely limited information about customers. There, understanding the customer is often considered someone else’s responsibility, because, “we have a department for that.” No department has a complete view of the customer, however, and so in place of true understanding are models and frameworks that attempt to describe the customer. Many companies don’t go beyond demographics and market segmentation. While it’s helpful to know how they break down by age, sex, income, region, and other easily measurable characteristics, there’s actually very little you can actually do with that information. In order to become customer experience-driven, you need to go beyond who your customers are, and understand what they do. …more at It’s Not Who Your Customers Are, It’s How They Behave – Peter Merholz – HarvardBusiness.org, published on 11 February 2009

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Business growth isn’t about selling to everyone; it is about selling to every right one – that is, everyone who is a “qualified” prospect.

When you try to sell to everyone your efforts are too broad. You aren’t focused and you soon are faced with failures, because you are wasting time trying to sell something without understanding the value in other people’s eyes – or even whether they are truly a good fit for your product or service.  In short, you aren’t qualifying companies/individuals in the field.

Qualifying – that is, effective prospecting and information gathering – leads you to the clients you should have.

Qualifying prospects includes 4 steps …more at A Dirt-Simple System for Qualifying Sales Prospects | Small Business Trends.

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Dear CNNMoney.com: I have owned and operated a retail storefront for the past three years. I recently launched an online e-commerce Web site. I have paid an SEO guy each month and have aggressively marketed the site, but I’m only getting one sale a month. I am losing faith in all of the work, time and effort that has been put in. Do you have any suggestions on how to jumpstart the e-commerce portion of my business?

- Joanne Versaggi, Mélange Home Décor, Marlton, N.J.

Dear Joanne ... read more at ‘My online store gets just one sale a month!’ – Jan. 29, 2009.

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But even if your business is struggling, you can take steps to turn it around and be poised to grow this year, says Paul Rauseo, managing director at the George S. May International, a Chicago consulting firm. Practical tips from Rauseo and other small business experts follow….more atTurning Around a Struggling Business – BusinessWeek.

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To secure a long-term customer, sales personnel need to “look beyond the sale.” They need to form a relationship with the customer, solving all of the customer’s needs and providing ongoing value of products and services.

The basis for establishing such a relationship is to address the five key needs of every customer. These include…Don’t Make a Sale, Make a Long-Term Customer – NFIB.com.

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He cites an experiment by Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer, where you can see this concept in action. Langer approached people waiting in line to use a copy machine and asked, “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” About 60% said “yes.”

Under similar circumstances, she did the same thing, but instead asked, “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?” In this case, an overwhelming 93% said “yes.”

What happened to increase the “yes” response so dramatically? …read more at Copyblogger. Flickr photo credit: It’sGreg.

For everyone who has dreaded asking for business, here are some tips that will help you overcome your fears and get comfortable selling on your own terms… read more at Selling Tips for the Timid – WomenEntrepreneur.com.

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