Here's a question I've received more than a hundred times in one form or another: "How do I make a (better) name for myself?"

Here is the premise, the definition, and the answer: In sales it's not who you know; in sales it's who knows you.

The challenge is not just making a name for yourself or building your brand; it's building the components that generate that name. How do you achieve more recognition, more notoriety, and a better reputation in your market and your community? Those are the elements that lead to a better name.

I'm talking about a better name for both a company and an individual.

There are no easy answers, and there are very few answers that don't require commitment, planning, and hard work.

Here's the good news. Most salespeople aren't willing to do the hard work it takes to make selling easy, so if you're willing, you automatically move to the top 10 percent, and if you execute, you're in the top 5 percent.

How do you tell the winners from the whiners? The whiners are complaining about everything, and they're worried about losing their jobs. The winners are planning to win, believing they'll win, and taking action. Which are you?

When the economy is in transition, it's the easiest time for you to make a change and begin to execute new ideas.

There are things you must begin to put in place now. Below are the actions that lead to long-term name building.

•Create your own weekly e-zine that features valuable information and highlights your customers. Look at my weekly e-mail magazine, Sales Caffeine, as an example. Go to www.salescaffeine.com and read about it. Look at an issue and emulate the process in your weekly e-zine. Sales Caffeine is seven years of weekly value messages.

•Register a Web site name today. It's only 10 bucks. If it's taken, put "The Great" or "the one and only" in front of it. Get your Web address, your URL address, registered today. The world is on the Web. The Internet is never going away. Be on it, or be gone.

•Invest in a small but powerful Web site that looks like something people would read, admire, tell others about, and maybe even buy from. Start with a one-page Web site that talks about, "how I treat my customers." Make a list of the 10 most valuable things you are dedicated to. Later you can add more pages, pictures, graphics, and pizzazz. But start small and be compelling.

•Be 1,000 percent more proactive. This means hitting both the phone and the send button. Make 10 calls a day that have value, and send 25 e-mails that have meaning to the recipient. Build relationships and earn referrals.

•Write something that puts you in front of customers and prospects. Put an article in your trade publication or your chamber magazine. Writing positions you as an expert and an authority.

•Give a speech or two at civic organizations. Speaking leads to perceived leadership. Afraid of speaking? Join Toastmasters and take a Dale Carnegie course.

•Blog to show your human side. Make your blog a family affair. Show your person, your personality, your passion, and your fun.

•Use YouTube. Video your value proposition, your testimonials, and your philosophy of sales and service. Post your videos on YouTube. Your customers and prospects will find them, and find you more attractive than your competitors.

•Get involved in your community. Pick one charity or one civic organization to get involved with and assert leadership in.

•Get Google-able. Wake up, Sparky! Your customer is googling you, just like you are googling them. Your one-page web Site, your e-zine, your article, your speech, and your community involvement will bring your name and your company's name to the top of the Google pile.

•Be a value provider, not a beggar, a solicitor, or a salesman. People will buy if they perceive your value, and they will spread the word, and your name.

Time is your friend. Be patient with it, invest in it, and use it to your best advantage. To really build a name for yourself, it takes lots of time and commitment, and it takes consistency.

Your name means everything. Name and reputation are intertwined. Your value-based information, your exceptional service, and your quality of product and person determine your reputation, your name, and your fate. Those who become valuable to their customers, their marketplace, and their community are the ones who win short term and long term.

What are people saying about you? When someone says your name, they're also going to say one of five things about you—something great, something good, nothing, something bad, or something real bad. That determines your fate.

If you want to build name recognition, and a great reputation, you have to dedicate yourself to the long-term process and the short-term work.

There are no easy answers.

If you want to learn my secret for long-term name recognition and loyal customers, go to www.gitomer.com, register if you're a first-time visitor, and enter NAME in the GitBit box.