As I was reading through Fortune magazine this morning, I came across a story penned by Becky Quick. She details her experience with salesman at several local car dealerships who mistakenly assumed that the “husband” was the one making the car buying decision. As you might imagine, these salesman acted with typical outdated stupidity with respect to gender and who makes the buying decisions. Hint: it isn’t always the man.

Well, the story got me thinking about the importance of never assuming you know who affects the buying decision. While there is certainly going to be a relevant executive in the picture who inks the deal, that doesn’t mean that they won’t also be relying on the opinions of others in the organization about whether or not to do business with you.

I’ve experienced this personally when interviewing for my position at Microsoft some years ago. Typically, I tend to chat up everyone I meet, because well, I just happen to like people. So on the day of the interview, I enter the reception area, introduce myself to the gal at the front desk and then struck up a friendly conversation, which lasted just a minute or two. Later, as I was I called into the meeting room, I made a point of thanking Tiffany for making me feel so welcome. As I left the Microsoft office that day, I again thanked her and told her that I hoped to see her again soon.

For me, that’s not only being friendly but it is simply common courtesy. Anyone would do the exact same thing, right? Wrong.

Later, after being hired for the job, I asked my boss if there was anything that truly differentiated me from the other, well qualified candidate that the final vote had come down to. He mentioned a couple of things, but he made a point of saying that Tiffany – from the front desk – had raved about how friendly and personable I was. Guess what…that made a difference. As I would later learn, the other candidate had barely given Tiffany the time of day.

Morale of the story? Treat everyone equally and with courtesy and respect, because you just never know who will influence the deal.

It seems appropriate to share some words of wisdom from Dale Carnegie. I’m longtime fan of Mr. Carnegie’s work and still remember the first time that I read, How to Win Friends and Influence People. It had a profound effect of me then, as it still does today when I periodically re-read key passages.

As a result of Carnegie’s influence, these are the key things that everyone in sales needs to remember and practice.

• Become genuinely interested in others. Get to know them and what they care about. Social networking profiles can yield big clues.
• Smile. Everybody likes an upbeat person who has smile for everyone they encounter.
• Call people by name. Remember that a person’s name is to them the sweetest sound on earth. It shows that care about them as a person, and I can tell you from personal experience, it can make the difference in more ways than one.
• Be a good listener. The old joke goes that we have “two ears and one mouth” for a reason. Do a little homework in advance and then ask questions that encourage the other person to do all the talking. Later they will say that you were the best conversationalist ever!
• Talk in terms of what is important to the other person. Make them feel important and do it sincerely.

And the final tip from me…never assume that one person is more important than other in an organization, regardless of their title. Everyone can influence a sale and how you treat people can make the difference between losing and winning!

Increasing revenue depends on being able to quickly penetrate targeted accounts, get to the right decision maker fast, shrink sales cycles and close business more quickly. The question many sales managers are grappling with is how? And in the urgent rush to move leads into the sales opportunity pipeline, I see a tendency to look to the past and default to “what used to work” when times were better.

What got you here, won’t get you there.

Marshall Goldsmith’s book of the same name, clearly illustrates the pitfalls of thinking that whatever strategies worked in achieving past successes will still work now and into the future. In most cases (maybe in all cases), they don’t.

A case in point…

I know of a very large, highly successful company who sells B2B services to their clients. They sell to the business owner or CEO of mid-sized organizations and their services are designed to improve business performance. Like many companies, revenue has been stagnant or slightly declining, which led to senior management determining that something needed to be done. Their solution? Insist that their salespeople hits the streets to “knock on doors” on a weekly basis. These reps are required to visit at least 25 companies, which is followed by completing a form detailing exactly where they went and who they talked too.

Now I don’t know about you, but I think this is about as lame as it gets. What business owner or CEO is sitting around waiting for a stranger to barge into their office with something to sell?

Doesn’t it strike you as ironic that a company selling business performance improvement solutions is using a 1970′s approach to reaching new prospects?

You might be wondering, as I did, who actually believes this will lead to qualified leads and the right kinds of clients for this company. The answer is that senior management does. These folks are the people who started the company, and in its inception, they used tactics like knocking on doors and cold calling to build the business. Because it worked then, they still believe it works now.

Activity should never be confused with effectiveness.

It isn’t the number of doors that you knock on or the number of people that you talk to that leads to the creation of new sales opportunities. What leads to new opportunities is targeting the right type of client for your business and getting an audience with the person who can make the buying decision. Walking into a business office and talking to the receptionist (because I’m pretty sure the CEO isn’t going to take a meeting with a stranger) is activity and not necessarily an effective sales approach if your goal is to move lead to close fairly quickly.

There are 4 ways to gain access.

In an excellent sales book called “Selling to the C-Suite“, authors Bistritz and Read talk about the 4 ways to gain access into an organization and the decision maker you want to reach. They are:

1. Overt – cold calling and knocking on doors falls here.
2. Sponsor – someone credible in the company sponsors you in the door.
3. Referral – a trusted 3rd party makes an introduction for you.
4. Gatekeeper – you connect with the administrative assistant and hope that building a relationship with her or him will lead to that desired appointment.

“84% of executives say they will take a meeting with someone who has been sponsored into the company.”

Clearly, finding ways to be “sponsored” is the way to go. And, as it turns out, 44% also said that they’d meet with someone who had been referred to them by a trusted, credible source. Why then do so many salespeople remain fixated on using approach #1 and #4 to gain access? I believe the answer is that it is easier and creates a false impression that they are “doing something”, instead of focusing their attention on doing the right something.

Seriously, would you rather close a deal in 60-days or 6-months or more?

In the end, shrinking the sales cycle and closing business more quickly won’t happen with a perceived “quick fix”. Achieving this goal requires a little more leg work on the front-end, and the effort is well worth it!

Before I get to the reason I’m writing today, I just have to take a moment to reflect on how incredible it is that I can be blogging at 30,000 feet. I’m “literally” in the cloud as I organize my thoughts. As a kid, I knew that I would be a frequent traveler, but never did I imagine that I would be doing my writing from a device the size of day planner. Amazing stuff.

OK, on to my topic for today.

Had the opportunity today to conduct a social media program with a sales organization looking to better leverage tools like LinkedIn and Inside View to supercharge their referral building, prospecting and lead generation activities. Though some in the audience were completely overwhelmed at times (there is so much to absorb it can make your head spin), they were a group eager to learn and stand apart from their competitors. Some of them may have walked into the room a little skeptical about how social can drive sales opportunities, but by the time I wrapped up…they got it.

Do you?

If you sell products and services and are reading this post, I want you to hear loudly and clearly what I’m about to share with you now.

Ready?

Here goes.

80% of buyers go online and start the sales process WITHOUT YOU! That’s right, they do their homework and may even be researching you right now. And you don’t even know it.

How’s that for a compelling reason to stop procrastinating and get that profile rockin’?

Buyer 2.0 is online looking for solutions that will solve their business problems and the people who will help them implement those solutions. Will they find you or your competitor first? If they find you, what message are you communicating? Is there enough compelling content to peak their interest so that they want to engage with you personally?

You likely have only one shot, and I’ve experienced firsthand how this works.

A recent client told me how they had been referred to me by a colleague. Rather than call me based on the recommendation, the very first thing that they did was go to my LinkedIn profile and website. They reviewed the content, watched my videos, checked out my background to validate that I did have the skills they wanted. It was at that point that they made the decision to connect with me about doing business together.

If I didn’t have the skills they needed, they would have kept looking for someone better suited to meet their needs. And, I would never have known it!!!!

I cannot emphasize enough that this happens all the time.

The tough part is you don’t even know how many times you are being passed over for a sales opportunity, because your LinkedIn profile is practically screaming at your prospect to move on to your competitor.

What can you do? Well, take a minute to read another post I wrote that talks about 29 ways that you can better leverage LinkedIn and put the suggestions into action. That will be a good starting point.

I’m about to close for today, so I want to leave you with a final thought.

If you really believe that actual revenue cannot be generated using tools like LinkedIn…you are wrong!

I would like to suggest that just because you do not understand how it all works doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. And that is a conversation for another day!

Ever wonder why you haven’t lost the 20 pounds you keep saying you want gone?

You haven’t decided to do what it takes to lose them.

Still talking about that book you have inside you but it just never seems to get written?

The decision to get your ideas on paper hasn’t been made.

Not hitting sales quota?

Maybe you’ve decided to blame the economy instead of deciding that people are still buying.

Are you dreaming about becoming your own boss while you slog it out 9-5 for someone else?

Dreaming won’t get you there; a decision to follow your heart will.

In Napoleon Hill’s classic work, Think and Grow Rich, he reminds us that the starting point of all personal achievement is desire. We decide that we want something so badly that our desire becomes a definite purpose, which we then put all of our energy into achieving. Sounds simple enough. Yet there is ample evidence that far too many people fall short of living their ideal life. Is that you?

Maybe it’s fear. After all, change is scary. Even if you know that moving in a different direction in your life or career will lead to something better, old habits die hard.

It’s possible that you’ve been running on autopilot so long that you really don’t know what would more fulfill you in your life or work.

Perhaps you talk yourself out of grabbing for the brass ring because from your current perspective, you just cannot fathom how it can be achieved.

Maybe you waste time blaming others for what isn’t working in your life today, and if that’s the case, you’ll never move forward. Think Occupy Wall Street.

English poet W.E. Henley wrote “I am the Master of my Fate; I am the Captain of my Soul”. Bottom line, no one else stands in your way but you.

Decide. Do. Have faith.

Yesterday I shared how sales professionals can optimize their LinkedIn profiles to become more “connectable” with prospects. Today I’ll share my tips for optimizing your Twitter profile so that it’s easy for people to get in touch with you. Remember: Buyers are impatient. The more barriers you put up, the more likely they are to move on to your competition.

Here are four changes you can make right now to your Twitter profile to capitalize on prospecting opportunities:

1) Add your phone number to your profile headline.

Some people might disagree with me on this one. The concern I’ve heard most often is that in doing so people leave themselves open to be stalked by salespeople with something to sell. Thinking as the salesperson that I am, I want you–my future customer–to call me if that’s your preference. Besides, you can use a service that lets you easily monitor incoming phone calls. I use Google Voice.

2) Arrange to have an email sent to you from Twitter whenever someone sends you a direct message (DM) on Twitter.

I don’t converse via DM often, so I find this particularly helpful in responding to people who choose to use DM to communicate. Heaven forbid that someone I’m connected to has an interest in purchasing my services and decides to use DM to reach me, but I don’t see the message for days or weeks.

3) Arrange to have an email sent to you from Twitter whenever you get a mention or an @reply in a Tweet.

It is likely that you’ll see the message more quickly via email and then you can quickly respond online or by reaching out to the individual directly.

4) Have an email notification sent to your inbox or your mobile device whenever you get a new Twitter follower.

Schedule time into your day to check out the profiles of people choosing to follow you. You never know when that might turn into a sales lead!

By the way, on November 15, I will present “Sales Meets Social: Identifying and Reaching High-Profile Prospects: at the Sales Strategies in a Social & Mobile World Conference. Perhaps I’ll see you there?