Our economy is hurting and projects are being delayed. Don’t make the mistake of becoming too reliant on vendor funding. As a solution provider, you can’t afford to wait around for your vendor partners to build your team, market your services, or fund your next event.

• Marketing Dollars: Marketing dollars are available; it’s just a matter of who is getting them. Don’t take “no” for an answer. Instead, come up with ways to ensure your sponsors are getting an incredible return for their investment.

• Vendor Training: Most of the vendor training programs out there are useless when it comes to enhancing your sales team’s performance. Invest in training programs that teach selling, not product features. Expert sellers outperform product specialists every time.

• Internal Training: I have a client who recently took a book about selling and worked through it chapter by chapter with his team – reading and testing. This was a great idea and it came at a low price. Training should not be seen as an annual event; it’s ongoing.

• Marketing Activities: Marketing takes work and investment. Find out what works and work at it incessantly. Prospects need to be surrounded by you so that when a need arises, all they see is you.

Getting to the buyer is important.

• If your executive meetings are ending without an agreement, record yourself and see why. Chances are you may be speaking a foreign language that is only understood by technologists.

• If you still think the CSO is a buyer, think again.

• If the IT gatekeepers won’t give you access to the decision maker, don’t hand over the proposal. If they still balk, offer a meeting between your executives and theirs. If that doesn’t work, try reaching out to the peers of the gatekeeper.

• If the gatekeeper has money to spend, let him spend it. Use the new project to meet the people higher up the ladder. Build in some type of consulting, design, assessment, etc., that requires access to asset owners. Then leverage these relationships on future work.

• If there just is no access, hold on and keep marketing. If you’re good, you’ll get in eventually.

I love customer service issues when I am the client. In a recent battle over frequent flyer points that did not get transferred properly from a partner airline, an airline agent rudely told me she could not transfer me to customer service as the transaction I needed had to be done online. Rather than arguing, I politely agreed that she did not have that ability, but perhaps her manager could help me. Hesitantly, she transferred me to her manager with the closing warning, “She’ll tell you the same thing,” and of course she did. However, by following the same procedure of agreement, the manager’s supervisor sent me right over to the person who could help me. Try that next time you’re in a customer service battle. It’s great practice for working your way up the ladder.

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Please pass this on to anyone you know who is working to build a profitable solutions business today. Consider having David Stelzl speak at your next quarterly meeting or customer event. Create a value proposition that positions you as the expert and attracts new clients. Consider hiring a professional coach to accelerate the process.