Here are the four main issues that I see as making sales more difficult in today's environment:

* Competition is global, and products can be easily purchased from anywhere in the world. Products have invisible competition, so pitching and presenting is often done in a vacuum.

* Decisions entail highly complex layers of consideration before buyers make final buying decisions. The sales cycle is elongated accordingly and the seller is left out of the loop in the process.

* Buyers' demands are almost ruthless: because of the amount of information they can get over the internet, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they can ask for and exactly how much they are going

Sometimes, when we have something we passionately want to say, we become so involved in formulating the crucial words that might make the listener take heed (we are caught up in needing to be heard) that we forget to ask ourselves one fundamental question: do we want to speak? Or have someone hear us?

I just found out how difficult this choice can be on a recent trip to Hong Kong and Shanghai. And this is a problem many of us face when attempting to enter another culture - be it a personal, inner culture, a group culture, or a country culture.

REMAINING IN OUR OWN WORLD

Let me begin by saying that both Hong Kong and Shanghai are where I believe the revolutionaries went when they left the States four years ago. Hong Kong is a very exciting place. I've been there twice now, and find the people smart, innovative, sophisticated, and creative. They are bursting with dynamism and ready to take risks. Shanghai is quite different and less international, but it, too, it exudes excitement and warmth and vibrancy - filled with anticipation and a special glow (with a large dose of humor and a gold-rush mentality).

Both cities welcome change, believing it's better to face change than stay the same. In fact, I find it more exciting to do business there than in the States right now: from my vantage point as an innovator, it seems to me that America has become rather risk-averse.

The 'dot.com' era's disintegration caused the American companies I've done business with to cut back on innovation. As a result, they're holding on to what they know - however successful that might be - and trying to make it work. Companies are 'making do' or doing the same thing harder/faster/larger.

Before I open up a discussion around global communication, let me take a long 'way round to harp on one of my pet peeves (I'll come back full circle, you'll see): I see this inability to truly go outside our thinking box and do something different as actually harming our revenues and, worse, our future.

I see Hong Kong and Shanghai growing, innovating, changing, learning, creating, and barging full throttle into the unknown, and having the massive growth and expansion that comes with that type of risk. I'm afraid that America will have a long road to hoe to catch up when it's ready to begin innovating again. Not to mention that the innovators may not want to move back from Asia where the action is.

PUSHING PRODUCTS INTO EXISTING SYSTEMS The problem is most apparent to me in the sales field, of course. It's the field I have known since the 70s and the field I've been innovating in since the 80s. Our risk-averse behavior is creating its own set of problems, and indeed holding back our revenue growth.

Here are the four main issues that I see as making sales more difficult in today's environment:

* Competition is global, and products can be easily purchased from anywhere in the world. Products have invisible competition, so pitching and presenting is often done in a vacuum.

* Decisions entail highly complex layers of consideration before buyers make final buying decisions. The sales cycle is elongated accordingly and the seller is left out of the loop in the process.

* Buyers' demands are almost ruthless: because of the amount of information they can get over the internet, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they can ask for and exactly how much they are going

REMAINING IN OUR OWN WORLD

Let me begin by saying that both Hong Kong and Shanghai are where I believe the revolutionaries went when they left the States four years ago. Hong Kong is a very exciting place. I've been there twice now, and find the people smart, innovative, sophisticated, and creative. They are bursting with dynamism and ready to take risks. Shanghai is quite different and less international, but it, too, it exudes excitement and warmth and vibrancy - filled with anticipation and a special glow (with a large dose of humor and a gold-rush mentality).

Both cities welcome change, believing it's better to face change than stay the same. In fact, I find it more exciting to do business there than in the States right now: from my vantage point as an innovator, it seems to me that America has become rather risk-averse.

The 'dot.com' era's disintegration caused the American companies I've done business with to cut back on innovation. As a result, they're holding on to what they know - however successful that might be - and trying to make it work. Companies are 'making do' or doing the same thing harder/faster/larger.

Before I open up a discussion around global communication, let me take a long 'way round to harp on one of my pet peeves (I'll come back full circle, you'll see): I see this inability to truly go outside our thinking box and do something different as actually harming our revenues and, worse, our future.

I see Hong Kong and Shanghai growing, innovating, changing, learning, creating, and barging full throttle into the unknown, and having the massive growth and expansion that comes with that type of risk. I'm afraid that America will have a long road to hoe to catch up when it's ready to begin innovating again. Not to mention that the innovators may not want to move back from Asia where the action is.

PUSHING PRODUCTS INTO EXISTING SYSTEMS The problem is most apparent to me in the sales field, of course. It's the field I have known since the 70s and the field I've been innovating in since the 80s. Our risk-averse behavior is creating its own set of problems, and indeed holding back our revenue growth.

Here are the four main issues that I see as making sales more difficult in today's environment:

* Competition is global, and products can be easily purchased from anywhere in the world. Products have invisible competition, so pitching and presenting is often done in a vacuum.

* Decisions entail highly complex layers of consideration before buyers make final buying decisions. The sales cycle is elongated accordingly and the seller is left out of the loop in the process.

* Buyers' demands are almost ruthless: because of the amount of information they can get over the internet, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they can ask for and exactly how much they are going

The 'dot.com' era's disintegration caused the American companies I've done business with to cut back on innovation. As a result, they're holding on to what they know - however successful that might be - and trying to make it work. Companies are 'making do' or doing the same thing harder/faster/larger.

Before I open up a discussion around global communication, let me take a long 'way round to harp on one of my pet peeves (I'll come back full circle, you'll see): I see this inability to truly go outside our thinking box and do something different as actually harming our revenues and, worse, our future.

I see Hong Kong and Shanghai growing, innovating, changing, learning, creating, and barging full throttle into the unknown, and having the massive growth and expansion that comes with that type of risk. I'm afraid that America will have a long road to hoe to catch up when it's ready to begin innovating again. Not to mention that the innovators may not want to move back from Asia where the action is.

PUSHING PRODUCTS INTO EXISTING SYSTEMS The problem is most apparent to me in the sales field, of course. It's the field I have known since the 70s and the field I've been innovating in since the 80s. Our risk-averse behavior is creating its own set of problems, and indeed holding back our revenue growth.

Here are the four main issues that I see as making sales more difficult in today's environment:

* Competition is global, and products can be easily purchased from anywhere in the world. Products have invisible competition, so pitching and presenting is often done in a vacuum.

* Decisions entail highly complex layers of consideration before buyers make final buying decisions. The sales cycle is elongated accordingly and the seller is left out of the loop in the process.

* Buyers' demands are almost ruthless: because of the amount of information they can get over the internet, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they can ask for and exactly how much they are going

I see Hong Kong and Shanghai growing, innovating, changing, learning, creating, and barging full throttle into the unknown, and having the massive growth and expansion that comes with that type of risk. I'm afraid that America will have a long road to hoe to catch up when it's ready to begin innovating again. Not to mention that the innovators may not want to move back from Asia where the action is.

PUSHING PRODUCTS INTO EXISTING SYSTEMS The problem is most apparent to me in the sales field, of course. It's the field I have known since the 70s and the field I've been innovating in since the 80s. Our risk-averse behavior is creating its own set of problems, and indeed holding back our revenue growth.

Here are the four main issues that I see as making sales more difficult in today's environment:

* Competition is global, and products can be easily purchased from anywhere in the world. Products have invisible competition, so pitching and presenting is often done in a vacuum.

* Decisions entail highly complex layers of consideration before buyers make final buying decisions. The sales cycle is elongated accordingly and the seller is left out of the loop in the process.

* Buyers' demands are almost ruthless: because of the amount of information they can get over the internet, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they can ask for and exactly how much they are going

Here are the four main issues that I see as making sales more difficult in today's environment:

* Competition is global, and products can be easily purchased from anywhere in the world. Products have invisible competition, so pitching and presenting is often done in a vacuum.

* Decisions entail highly complex layers of consideration before buyers make final buying decisions. The sales cycle is elongated accordingly and the seller is left out of the loop in the process.

* Buyers' demands are almost ruthless: because of the amount of information they can get over the internet, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they can ask for and exactly how much they are going to pay. All of this, before they make a purchase.

* Because products seem so similar when viewed on the internet or in marketing descriptions, buyers can't differentiate. They end up commoditizing products, and buyers are buying more on price than ever before.

Given the above, and the commensurate revenue sluggishness, companies are attempting to close the gap in sales cycles and product/price differentiation by trying to sell harder, or gather data differently, or offering more product information, or attempting to 'understand buyer's buying patterns' (a tip of the hat to my work over the past decade, but still not touching the heart of the issue), etc.

When this isn't working, they are adding software (i.e. CRM), or using incentives to get sales folks to work harder, or using price as an incentive to close deals. All of the above continue to be rooted in conventional sales thinking and are still predicated on the product as being the primary offering, rather than adding new, innovative skills to the sales process itself.

In fact, sellers still work hard at making their product fit the buyer rather than the other way 'round. Even the newer form of selling methodologies are different forms of traditional sales, just with a customer focus assertion as a new 'angle'. Sales continues to be based on selling something. The belief systems and the very fabric of the thinking has remained the same for a long, long time. And in this global market we're in today, the rules, the thinking, and the focus must change or there will be continued loss of revenues.

In the meantime, we'll continue to experience our current problems: Longer than necessary sales cycles. Difficulty closing. Business being lost for unknown reasons. Profit margins slipping as prices get cut to their slimmest margins. Difficulty discovering how/why people are buying. Great presentations and proposals that don't win the business. Rambling excuses as to when deals might close.

With this array of problems, supervisors - who are now hiring 'seasoned' sellers who know their product and market (as if were the magic bullet) - are perplexed, and end up firing the salespeople when they don't bring in the expected results.

But while companies play musical sales people (firing one person and hiring the same person with a different name), they are not changing the nature of the problems inherent in the very act of 'sales'.

ARE WE SELLING? OR HELPING FOLKS BUY? Indeed, the very act of the sales process causes the deficient results.

Before our modern business era, pushing information or gathering client data to help them solve problems was inefficient, but at least it worked eventually. But that's not happening today. Nothing is happening.

It's just not effective any more to push (with product or service) against a system (like a buyer's culture or environment) and assume that the system (complex, global) will open en