Sure, relationships rule in the world of sales. But when push comes to shove, it is almost always about the number of calls you make each day.  As I work with sales people in companies large and small, there seems to be a common theme these days…sales people “think” they are making the appropriate number of phone calls to make goal and they are not.  So, how do you know?  First, as a sales person, stop lying to yourself.  It is easy to track and determine the number of outbound phone calls you made today.  Next, as a sales manager, listen and track.

With all the buzz about social media, many publishers are losing focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and the cumulative effect of this distraction will be reduced traffic and reduced revenue due to dropping search engine rankings. Many publishers and web masters think they know how to create SEO success for their publication web site and are amazed when we run them through our 10 point SEO check up and reveal they are losing ground, losing rankings and thus soon to lose revenue.  A recent publisher told me they were #1 when you typed their magazine name in Google.  Is this how you are gauging your SEO success?  Another publisher, suffering from a major plateau in web traffic, was amazed to learn than only 20 searches were done in the last 30 days for the topic they presented very well online.  We made one small tweak to how they were presenting their topic online and their web traffic grew 345% in 30 days!

We all know that people read left to right, so why then is the most important information on our websites on the right? At this point, I could stop writing this blog post and cause many of you to run to your site and propose changes.  So before you create havoc with your web team, read on.  

eMarketer's Stephanie Reese posted... "In 2011, 68.2% of US internet users, or 158.1 million people, will be watching video online at least once a month. By 2015, 76% of the internet audience, or 195.5 million people, will be viewing video regularly online."  But, what does this mean to publishers?  Get on board or get lost.

Nielsen Online & Webvisible conducted a survey polling nearly 4,000 people in the U.S. asking about their habits and methods in finding local businesses. Their results revealed a considerable disconnect between the way consumers look for local business and the way business owners are advertising.  I always like to share stats when I find those that apply to online sales.  Overall sales people fail to embrace these stats and use them as ammunition in the field.