Here's a common scenario: You're a first-time entrepreneur with your very first shiny new business. You want to get out there and sell your products or services to your clients. But there's a problem: They want to know how long you've been doing this for and, because you're an honest person, you admit that you've only been doing this for a week (or a month or whatever brief time you've been in business).

Challenging, isn't it?! Some entrepreneurs will simply lie and make up a number but most of us know (because our moms told us) that honesty is the best policy. So, how can you be honest about your lack of running a business while still positioning yourself as an expert? It's tricky but it is possible.

First, keep in mind that customers don’t care how long you've been operating as a sole proprietor (or whatever your business model is). The questions they are asking are for their own peace of mind: They want to know if you have the chops to deliver on your promise. And even though you're new to the BUSINESS world, you probably do have what it takes. So, answer the question they actually want to know rather than the one they are asking. If they ask something like, "How long have you been selling these widgets", then answer truthfully but bring in your other widget-related experience with something like, "I'm actually fairly new to the widget-SELLING side of the business but I've been working in widgets for the past ten years."

But don't stop there! Be sure to bring back the conversation to the benefits they'll receive. For example, continuing on from what you just said in the past paragraph, you might continue with, "So I'm not only providing widgets but I'm also bringing a decade of industry-insider experience. I know widgets inside and out."

You might face the challenge, however, of not having specific industry experience in the product or service you're now selling. However, this does not have to be detrimental either. Don't answer the customer's question with a product-specific or industry-specific answer. Instead, broaden the answer in a way that allows you to bring in your out-of-industry expertise. For example, someone who goes from selling boats to selling cars might talk about having experience selling transportation. Someone who goes from selling airplanes to selling houses might talk about having experience with complex, big-ticket items that have a lifecycle of a decade. The solution here is to find the common points between what you used to do and what you do now and highlight those.

In doing so, you'll assure the customer that you can deliver on your promise and you'll also find that other aspects of your previous business experience (once thought to be unrelated) can actually be included as part of your expertise.

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All businesses rely on sales to generate revenue and profit. That's what makes it a business, right? But many new entrepreneurs starting a business for the very first time are surprised by – and even turned off by – the amount of selling required to be successful.

I can think of a friend of mine who is a freelancer. After enjoying some success in his own business, he says he is approached frequently by people who see his lifestyle and assume they can do it, too. Sure they have the talent required to create deliverables but when it comes to selling, they're turned off and go back to their day-jobs.

No matter what the business is, selling is what makes or breaks a business. And if you're a small business owner and don't yet have a staff of sales people, you're the one who needs to sell.

As you get into the selling part of your business, you may find that you encounter a common challenge that many sales people – in ever industry – encounter. It's called "call reluctance". Simply put, it's doing whatever you can to avoid making the sales call! You're certainly not along: Call reluctance plagues small business owners and even professional sales people.

It stems from negative talk that can occur prior to the call in which you talk yourself out of initiating a sales call. You might think to yourself "they're not going to want to buy from me" or "this economy is too rough for this person to make a purchase right now". Whether or not your thinking is based in fact, it's a persistent, negative thought that can keep you from doing the work you need to do to ensure long-term business survival.

Call reluctance is simply a form of procrastination. If you've ever struggled with other types of procrastination, you'll know how easy it is for call reluctance to rear its ugly head.

So, how do you push through so that you pick up the phone or walk through the door or write that email (or whatever it is that you need to do to present your offer?)

In Jim Blasingame's article, "Somebody's Buying; Is It From You?" he addresses exactly this situation. You can read the article at Small Business Advocate. Blasingame does a good job of addressing the negative "self-talk" that sellers like you can talk yourself into. And I love what he says at the end: Remember, somebody is buying something from someone somewhere — right now! It might as well be you.

Read the article to help you overcome your call reluctance and then make 3 sales calls! Get the momentum you need and you'll look back at the end of the day with great satisfaction knowing that you not only overcame reluctance but you made some sales, too!

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The other day we had a heavy rainstorm and for about 15 minutes the power was out. Not a big deal. And since I work on a laptop that had a charged battery, I was able to keep working. The only thing was, I had no internet connection for those 15 minutes because, although my laptop is powered by a battery and kept on ticking, my wireless hub is powered through the outlet in the wall. And wouldn’t you know it, during those 15 minutes I thought of a million things that I needed to check online but couldn’t get to!

This brief "mandatory offline" time prompted me to think about my mix of online and offline marketing. Businesses need both. Unfortunately, small businesses don’t have a lot of resources to spend on a lot of marketing online and offline. It makes sense that many go online in order to gain exposure to a potentially larger audience.

But offline marketing is just as important. Now, I believe that a lot of offline marketing is undergoing dramatic changes right now. Just look at the print periodical industry to see how newspapers (and, to a lesser degree, magazines) are struggling to stay afloat. Radio and television advertising is often priced beyond the reach of small businesses, too.

But there are other offline marketing efforts that small business owners can take part in: Business cards, post cards, brochures, and direct mailing are four good examples. And, networking (for example, at a Chamber of Commerce event or an industry convention) is another vital offline marketing opportunity.

If your business has been focusing on the online marketing aspect for a while, that’s good. It’s important. But don’t neglect your offline marketing as well. Here’s a few steps for you to take to make sure that your online and offline marketing mix are working together:

Step 1: Plan. Look at all of your marketing – both online and offline – and figure out how it contributes to your sales pipeline. Does it create leads? Does it help to convert prospects into customers? Chances are, each marketing method does several things but probably only one or two primary things. Figure out what those are and watch for gaps!

Step 2: Unify. Once you’ve seen how each part of your online and offline marketing mix contributes to your sales pipeline, unify your message. Your brand – which includes your business name, Unique Selling Proposition (USP), your logo, your contact information, and some relevant supporting messaging – need to be present and similar across all of your marketing media.

Step 3: Increase. After choosing a handful of offline and online marketing, plan to increase those opportunities slowly. It’s often easy and tempting to increase your online marketing at a faster pace (because new free sites are added to the web so frequently) but make sure that you don’t leave your offline marketing behind. If the choice is to add a third or fourth Twitter clone to your marketing or to go to a networking event, you might want to consider the offline, face-to-face event. Although you’ll meet fewer people, your very presence may potentially have a greater impact.

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Starting up a business can be a thrilling experience. There is nothing like the feeling of brainstorming ways to serve customers, dream up shockingly innovative products and services, and clever ways to deliver that offering to the marketplace. It’s no wonder that we’ve coined a word for the entrepreneurs who do this kind of thing over and over and over and over: "Serial entrepreneurs".

Your start-up might be something you operate from the dining room table in the evenings and on weekends when you’re not at your day-job or it might be a high-concept, high tech effort that has venture capitalists drooling all over themselves to get to you. Regardless of what it looks like, there is one truth about your business that you need to keep in mind:

You may THINK you have a business, but until your first sale is made, you do not.

As soon as you make that sale, you’re officially in business and you need to figure out whatever you did right to close deal #1 and repeat that process. But until that sale is made, you have a non-profit organization!

The problem is, lots of people have great ideas about business – innovative offerings or new ways of delivering a product. Great. But even if they set up all the infrastructure and legal documentation and advertising, they still have a non-profit. Only a skilled few can get that business idea (+ infrastructure and legal documentation and advertising) and turn it into a real business. And that is the reason why so many businesses fail in the first years.

Ask any seasoned business owner and they will tell you that "build it and they will come" is always the dream of every entrepreneur but it is rarely the reality. Instead, it’s more like "build it and then chase after them". Even advertising is not as effective as sales. Advertising just creates awareness and rarely brings people all the way to closing of the deal.

What business success really takes is good old fashioned sales: Generating leads, knocking on doors, cold calling, networking.

Case in point: A colleague of mine is a freelance writer. He says that every 3 to 6 months he’s asked by friends or family "can you show me how to make a living as a writer so I can do it too?". And of those people, very very few actually follow through. They’re always shocked to discover that it takes SALES to do the job.

Now, after having written all that, some of you will point to me that sites like Twitter do just fine without any revenue. That is an excellent question and almost deserving of its own post. However, I will link to this site – http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/01/twitters-busine.html – which helps to explain how many websites (especially web 2.0 and social media companies) start free but do eventually close the deal.

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When your business considers its marketing mix, how do you decide what kinds of marketing are in and what kinds are out? Usually, there’s a combination of reach, frequency, and cost, and hopefully a consideration of whether the marketing medium is aligned with your product or service.

Those are important considerations but there is one that often gets missed, particularly from small (and sometimes midsized) businesses. It’s the target factor.

While it can be valuable to get your message out to as many people as possible, it is often far more valuable to get your message out to a highly targeted group instead. Unfortunately, the targeted marketing is often ignored in favor of the more general broad-based effort, often because of cost. After all, so the thinking goes, doesn’t it make more sense to spend less per eyeball?

Let’s look at an example:

Company A sells B2B services and pays $1000 for 5 ads in a general newspaper. The paper will reach 1 million households.

Company B sells the same B2B services and pays $1000 for 5 ads in a business newspaper. The paper will reach 100,000 businesses.

In this example, Company A’s marketing seems to provide more value because it gives a lower per-eyeball cost. However, Company B’s marketing will probably be the best value. The reason is the market reading the ad. Spending $1000 to reach a million households is just fine, except that only a fraction of those household readers are decision-making business people who are thinking about the needs of their business. And, by the time they have are able to act, even fewer will recall the ad or the company.

Company B’s marketing, which seems to cost more per eyeball, will likely return better value because its readers are business readers focused on business problems. The ad is delivered in a format the reaches them while their mind is on business. It’s a much better target.

So, while marketing reach is important, targeted marketing is more important. It will cost more per eyeball, but it can also deliver far more customers to your business.

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