By Troy Harrison

If there's ever an over-used phrase in the world of sales and marketing, it's "Thinking outside the box." Whenever I hear a business owner or salesperson use that phrase with me, I know that there's a 90 percent chance that they are not succeeding. "Thinking outside the box" is fine-if you're ready to do it. The truth, however, is that the vast majority of business is won or lost inside the box.

When I talk about working "inside the box," I'm talking about executing the basic fundamentals that make the difference between succeeding and failing. If you're not executing those fundamentals, it doesn't matter how creative and revolutionary your ideas are; you're not going to be successful, regardless of where you are in relation to the box.

Let's talk about a basic checkup on your sales force that will tell you if you're ready to implement "outside the box" products or sales approaches. There are a few key parameters you should be watching:

Quantity
Are your salespeople seeing enough customers and prospects? This is the most fundamental of parameters in your sales force, but it's the one that's most often missing. In fact, when a salesperson talks to me about his creative new sales approach, I can almost guarantee that he's not making enough sales calls (because he's not, he's hoping that creativity will cover for him).

Your salespeople have about 40 hours of work time in a week, and if you're a conventional B2B salesperson, you have about 30 hours of prime selling time. How much of that time is spent face-to-face with customers, and how much is spent doing non-productive activities? You should have a guideline for sales calls each week, and monitor it.

Quality
Are your salespeople having quality customer interactions? We just talked about quantity of activity; let's talk about quality. When your salespeople meet with new prospects, are they accurately assessing their needs and recommending the appropriate products and services? When they meet with current customers, are they advancing the relationship with each interaction, or are they having five-minute "how's it going" calls that accomplish nothing? To monitor this, you'll need to be out in the field with your salespeople and in front of customers. That's a darn good place for you to be on a regular basis.

Reputation
How's your reputation? When we go about our business lives, we interact with other people. The sum total of those interactions is our reputation on the street, as it were. If you're not taking care of your employees, your customers, your referral partners and/or your vendors, that reputation becomes negative. Every piece of bad service, every defective product, every disgruntled employee, every unpaid bill, can cost you a customer. The easiest way to have a positive reputation is to take care of those with whom you interact and to live up to your promises.

Complete Customer Service
Think about ALL your salespeople-direct and indirect. Most companies place the burden of selling and maintaining business entirely on the sales staff when, in fact, many people in your company interact with your customers or affect their experience indirectly. Think of this example: A salesperson selling industrial supplies calls on the stockroom manager of a distribution plant. The stockroom manager decides to place an order, so he calls the industrial supplies company. Usually, the salesperson will be out in the field, so he'll place his order with in-house staff.

First, the receptionist answers the phone, then he's transferred to the inside salesperson who places the order. In the warehouse, a shipper pulls and packages the order, and finally, the delivery driver takes it to the stockroom manager.

That means that, in addition to the salesperson, four people had the opportunity to affect the customer's experience for better or for worse. If your receptionist is unpleasant, or the delivery driver is rude, it might add up to an experience that the customer won't want to repeat. Make sure that your customers get a consistent quality of service, top to bottom.

If you're accomplishing all these things, maybe it's time to get outside the box. The easiest way to do that is to take a fresh look at your product. Is there a new market that could be served by the same product, or a slightly modified version? Is there a different message that your people should be communicating to your customers? Are there new and different ways to get your product into customers' hands?

If you're selling your products, think about leasing. If you're leasing, think about selling. Whatever you do, make sure that you continue to check and monitor the fundamentals that we discussed. It's okay to get outside the box, but make sure the box is adequately filled first.

Troy Harrison is the author of Sell Like You Mean It - Outselling Your Competitors By Understanding Your Customers, and the owner of SalesForce Solutions, a Kansas City-based sales training and consulting company. You can get more information about SalesForce Solutions and subscribe to the free "HotSheet" weekly e-zine by visiting www.salesforcesolutions.net or calling (913) 645-3603.