Setting Sale Is your business anchored down by a stale sales plan? Learn how to navigate the 5 biggest sales challenges facing entrepreneurs today, and get back on course.

For Diane Hessan, selling is a lot different than it was just afew years ago. Sales cycles are longer as prospects convene15-person committees to debate even the smallest sales decisions.Customers demand to see a definitive ROI before they'll buy,and they ask for more price breaks when they do.

"It's just a much more challenging salesenvironment," says Hessan, CEO of Communispace, a40-employee software company in Watertown, Massachusetts, thathelps blue-chip companies get customer feedback and insight overthe Web.

Hessan and the company's four in-house salespeople areputting more emphasis on solid relationships with existingcustomers, and the company's implementation people are muchmore involved in the sales process. A referral program pullspromising leads from customers, and each resulting sales call iscustomized to the prospect much more than in the past."We're trying to reduce our ice-cold [sales] calls,"Hessan says, "and we're spending a lot of time collectingROI stories and using them in our sales process."