Entrepreneur.com -- I have a law degree, Masters of Business Administration and an economics undergraduate degree. But none of this formal education taught me how to generate demand and have a sales conversation. You can hang a sales sign or banner outside of your store, but none of those techniques puts you in the position of authority that’s needed to have an effective sales conversation. Authority is built one message at a time.

In July of 2002, I joined Infusionsoft.  My primary responsibility was bringing in sales, but I also did strategy, finance, marketing, bookkeeping, janitorial services and a host of other tasks. I had many different roles because, like every startup, I needed to wear any and every hat that was necessary to keep the business going.

My sales hat kept me busy most of the day. I'd spend countless hours prospecting for leads, getting them to finally answer their phones and then chase them for weeks. I felt like I was in a never-ending battle for survival, which put me in a really bad position to negotiate. Over time, I learned that effective sales conversations happen when people chase you, so I began to make the shift from salesperson to an authoritative advisor. Here are the things I've learned: 

Related: The 15 Characteristics of People Who Succeed at Sales

1. The manual sales process wastes time and money.

Spending time prospecting on social and spamming people who don't care to talk to you wastes time and money. The manual sales method that your parents passed down to you doesn't work effectively. Moving away from manual sales processes takes time, but is well worth the effort.

Most of my first year at Infusionsoft was spent knee-deep in sales and marketing. I used pay-per-click advertising to attract interest of potential customers. They’d click an ad, fill out a form on our website and I’d be notified that I had a lead. I’d then get on the phone as fast as possible to begin the sales conversation.

During the first call, I would diligently work to identify customer problems and educate them on the power of our software. More often than not, I would spend hours on the phone over weeks or months to close a sale. I used our customer relationship management functionality to keep track of the conversations and organize them based on how far they had gone in the sales process. Occasionally, I would send emails one by one to follow up after the call.

I used and perfected this manual sales process for over a year and was making slow, steady progress in the business. But, I didn't feel successful. I was wasting a lot of time chasing leads that didn’t care to talk to me. My conversations weren’t powerful or effective and didn’t leave me in a good position to negotiate. My sales weren't as large as I needed them to be and I had to figure out a way to get the phone to ring without so much effort.

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