Secret of Success is Sales . . . Yeeuck!

Mike Banks Valentine

The great promise of the web was that vast worldwide market
where you could reach millions without doing traditional
sales. Put up a killer web site and reel in the big fish!
Or simply scoop up millions of tiny fish in that big "net".
Voila! No sales necessary! Now it's only spammers that fall
for that as the rest of us realize we must sell to succeed.

How many ideas have succeeded on their own merits - without
promotion, marketing and sales? What products have taken the
world by storm when no one knew about them? Why do authors
go on book-signing tours, actors make the rounds of the talk
show circuit, and major companies spend millions on trade
shows? They launch monstrous public relations campaigns and
give away tchotchke's with their logo emblazoned on them.

Public awareness does not come cheap or easy. The sales
process is a necessary evil that many small business people
abhor (and then they die) or embrace (and then they prosper.)
Innovators and inventors must seek venture capital and sell
their concept to investors. Why do we recoil from the sales
process if the task falls to us as independent business
owners? We look to gurus of marketing, P.R. and promotion to
rescue us from this task and throw money at advertising to
avoid doing sales ourselves.

Riches are reaped from multi-level marketers recruiting vast
hoards of amateur sales people through pep-rally conventions
offering "residual sales" without further effort by building
a "downline", another name for sales staff. Then you can ease
off, live on the sales efforts of hundreds of new "recruits".
The product is secondary and the business opportunity is key
to building that sales staff, so you can reach the top of the
pyramid and sip tropical drinks on the beach while "they" sell.

MLM seeks salespersons whose goal is to avoid selling by
recruiting others to do it for them. Affiliate programs have
proliferated on the web, recruiting others to sell for them.
But in the end the key is sales, sales and more sales, no
matter whether the business model is direct sales or through
selling the idea to others of selling for you. Sales is key.

Try search engine optimization. Is this another approach
of seeking sales without effort or expense? No, you must
still do the sales while "it" delivers the targeted traffic.
SEO brings you folks interested in what you sell by helping
your web site communicate effectively with search engine
spiders. You must still give each of those visitors your
best sales pitch by communicating why they should consider
buying your product after SEO helps them to find your site.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) delivers potential buyers for
your product or service. Eyeballs for your sales pitch are
its specialty. You create a needed product or service and SEO
brings you people interested in what you sell so you can sell
to them. You still do the selling, but now you have visitors
to offer your sales pitch to. Convince them after SEO brings
them to you and you will make sales, make lots of sales and
you will be successful.

SEO delivers prospects for your sale.

About the Author

Mike Valentine does Search Engine Placement for the Small
Business http://website101.com/Search_Engine_Positioning
WebSite101 "Reading List" Weekly Netrepreneur Tip Sheet
Weekly Ezine emphasizing small business on the Internet
http://website101.com/arch/