You hear a lot about breakthroughs; is it all hype, or can you really create a breakthrough in your marketing and sales? I know that you can.

I spent last weekend skiing in Vermont with my spouse, nephew and his finance Sonia. We were all having a great time on slopes, except Sonia. Sonia doesn't have as much experience as rest of us and was struggling to keep up. Her problem wasn't one of effort. She was working much harder than rest of us, fighting each turn and slowing her progress down hill. In a few minutes, I showed her how to tip her skis to make easy, graceful S shaped turns that took advantage of new shaped skis. After making a run or two, she was skiing twice as fast with less effort, and having more fun.

You too can experience a breakthrough in your skiing, golf swing or in your marketing. If you are like most business owners, you advertise, send out mailings, make sales calls and have a web site. This is what you do to market your business; way you do these things will make difference between success and failure.

What would constitute a breakthrough in your business? Like Sonia, you may be inadvertently working harder than you need to be to get results you want. With a few changes to your marketing strategy and techniques you could be getting a lot more attention, generating more qualified leads and converting more prospects to clients and having more fun.

Hot Dope #1) The more that your potential customers see your name in front of them, more likely they are to call your number (and not someone else’s) when they need services you offer.

Many marketing efforts go unrewarded, not because they were off target but simply because they weren’t given enough of an opportunity to work. Showing your TV commercial one time, running an ad in newspaper once, or doing one mailing of postcards may not be enough to grab and keep audience’s attention.

Get your name out there, do it on a regular basis and people will remember you when they need someone in your line of business. Actually, this particular “Hot Dope” cannot be stressed enough – and failure to adhere to it is #1 reason new businesses fail.

You should also know that taking time to really see which pieces will generate response you want will pay off. Don’t just totally give up when a response is low – persistence is vital.

Hot dope # 2) Measure your Return On Investment (ROI) in terms of actual MONEY not response rate. An advertising vehicle is working when MONEY that it brings in has more value than MONEY and time that is spent on marketing.