Sales and marketing programs have traditionally used the concept of a funnel to visualize the sales cycle. The wide top symbolizes the endless number of unqualified prospects who gradually thin out along the way, ending with the actual buyers (and ideally, repeat buyers) at the bottom of the funnel.

How well do you know your customers? If your first response to this question is to begin spouting off sales facts and figures, the answer is, "Not well at all." Purchasing data may tell you about a customer's business and buying behavior, but it says nothing about who they are and what makes them tick.

You're probably familiar with Proctor & Gamble, or P&G, as the company is known. It's a multinational manufacturer of products that help people care for babies, wash dishes, brush their teeth, and simply smell better. Its brands include Bounty paper towels, Mr. Clean, Pepto-Bismol, and Old Spice, the purveyor of ubiquitous and strange advertising.

P&G is also the largest advertiser in the world, spending more than $2.5 billion a year. So you can probably understand why P&G's decision in 2015 to switch advertising agencies made executives at Publicis Groupe break out in a sweat. Publicis had been P&G's primary agency for years, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars and enjoying a calm business environment.

"If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you." —Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of a little outfit named Apple.

As Alec Baldwin famously told us in Glengarry Glen Ross, a salesperson's mantra is "Always be closing." The flaw in this concept is that it puts the emphasis on a customer's behavior rather than their thinking. Because of this, salespeople mistakenly think that a significant feature like the price is critical to making the sale.

Have you ever conducted a sales training session and caught a glimpse of someone with a glazed, far-away look in their eyes? Maybe that's even happened to you during a meeting or seminar where you just couldn't connect with the presentation.

Sometimes, you only get one chance to get it right.

Ask Minnesota Viking Blair Walsh. Or David Hasselhoff, who tried to parlay a successful career in Hollywood into a career as a singer. And then there are the marketers behind "New Coke." They all found out how important it is to get it right when it comes to kicking game-winning field goals, making positive first impressions, and launching new products.

Three... two... one... we've got a new product launch!

Or do we?

 The truth is, most new products don't succeed.

Breaking through the sales growth barrier can be tricky for any business that is ready to grow. To prepare yourself for the growth of your business, you need to ensure that your sales team is fully trained in the sales process so that they are prepared to handle growth. The following are some of the steps that you need to take in order to ensure that an effective sales process is in place and that your sales team is ready to handle the potential growth of your company.

What does it say about the value of salespeople when even Silicon Valley relies on them to move up and to the right?

That's right. The bastion of tech business excellence is finally admitting that salespeople can play important roles in helping businesses grow – even if their businesses are already growing.