To help you avoid these same pitfalls, I have listed some of the top sales and marketing mistakes companies make.

Mistake #1: Having A 'One And Done' Mentality When It Comes To A Marketing Campaign - To succeed at marketing, you need to target the most qualified prospects on a continuous basis - especially since 97% to 99% of your prospective buyers are NOT ready to buy what you are selling.

Mistake #2: Keeping Poor Performing Salespeople On The Company's Payroll Too Long - It will behoove you to provide your salespeople with a written goal of what they need to produce in sales to be employed at your company. Although this can sometimes be a grey area, you do need to provide salespeople with written guidelines to help set their expectations (and to light some drive in them too).

Mistake #3: Not Building An Accurate Database Of Customers, Past Customers And Prospects - Successful businesses know that having an accurate database of prospective buyers to target will give them the greatest ROI on their sales and marketing efforts.

Mistake #4: Not Creating A Business Development Center For Your Salespeople - Salespeople need to not only have ad slicks and brochures at their fingertips to send to a prospective buyer, but they also need sales tools like whitepapers, articles, press releases, customer testimonials, success stories (cost-saving or money-making), etc. That said, create an "electronic" folder they can all tap into for this resource.

Mistake #5: Not Creating A Hunter's Mentality For Your Sales Team - There are many elements that go into creating a hunter's mentality; however, one of the best things you can do is to give you salespeople a high commission/spiff on a new sale.

Mistake #6: Not Focusing On A Niche Market - One of the best things you can do for your sales and marketing team is to focus on a specific vertical(s). Do this, and you will be surprised to see how quickly you can increase your sales.

Mistake #7: Not Having A Sales Follow-Up System In Place - Companies that have the most sales success have a formal follow-up system in place - a system that integrates both their sales team and their marketing campaigns.

Mistake #8: Not Measuring The Right Sales Metric For Their Salespeople - It is not all about measuring the number of telephone calls or appointments a salesperson makes, it is more about measuring the events, e.g., webinars, demos or decision-maker meetings, that trigger the sales process.

THE #1 MISTAKE YOU NEED TO AVOID IS THIS:

Mistake #9: Not Willing To Change Or Modify Their Current Sales And Marketing Strategies, Tactics And Behaviors - If you are not willing to change your current sales and marketing efforts, don't expect to see things change in a positive direction any time soon.

Mistake #10: Relying Upon Salespeople To Stay In Touch With Their Database Of Prospects - Our research has proven that 50% of all salespeople stopped contacting, for at least 9 to 12 months or altogether, a prospective buyer after their FIRST unsuccessful attempt at getting the sales process started or moved forward. This number skyrockets to 99% after their third unsuccessful attempt. If you are the sales leader for your organization, don't think YOUR salespeople will perform any differently.

Executive Summary: There are many costly sales and marketing mistakes that ALL businesses make -- including yours and mine. If you take a really close look at your organization, you will see how you can overcome a lot of the challenges listed above.

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