This article originally appeared on the NAHB Sales and Marketing Channel

How do super star athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods consistently deliver winning performances - despite the odds, pressure and intense media spotlight?

How could Flight 1549 pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger make the right split-second decision in the midst of a life-and-death crisis?

How do emergency first-response teams manage to carry frightened children out of burning buildings, talk down suicidal jumpers and calm angry mobs when irrational emotions rule the day?

If you've ever wondered what makes these professionals great, you're not alone.

While they share many incredible traits, including determination, discipline and dedication, central to their success is an intense reliance on process to guide their decision-making. They rely on process so much that it works best when the pressure is at its greatest.

Reacting to pressure this way is certainly not innate. It takes practice, practice and more practice.

In the accompanying YouTube video, Michael Jordan gives us a glimpse of his process as he instructs basketball players on how to make the game-winning free throw. He uses a ritual that helps him focus and he is so confident in his process that, just before he shoots the ball, he closes his eyes. He says he's even done this during a game, occasionally. Amazing.

In our industry, many of us use the time-honored critical sales path to sell homes and ensure a smooth, consistent sales process. It is a proven fact that a sales process leads to more sales.

Marketing With Your Eyes Closed

What if an e-marketing process could help you save time and money and get better results? Now, what if you could learn to market with your eyes closed?

Few builders approach marketing from a strategic, process-oriented point of view. All too often, they react to a lack of traffic by quickly instituting new marketing initiatives - instead of developing a proactive strategic process before a crisis erupts.

Before Internet marketing, this "from-the-hip" marketing approach was easier to correct mid-stream - not an ideal or recommended approach to marketing, but prevalent. Before the Internet, when a print ad or billboard performed poorly, builders and marketers could change it quickly at minimal cost.

In contrast, re-working e-marketing mistakes made on Web sites, in social media campaigns or search engine optimization initiatives provides an expensive lesson they can delay results and eat away at a marketing budget.

For example, many builders have worked for months and spent thousands of dollars on a new Web site only to discover after the launch that the site is not technically sound, cannot be easily updated or wasn't built to accommodate future growth.

Because implementing Web marketing takes a fair amount of time, effort and money, starting over sometimes isn't possible, leaving organizations with a tool that doesn't produce results.

But using a process can help ensure that your Web marketing is on target, has maximum flexibility and increases your return on investment (ROI).

The Builder eMarketing Strategy

Consider using the Builder eMarketing Strategy^TM (BMS), which I introduced in my manual, "Log On to eLeads", as a roadmap to create a successful Internet marketing process.

The roadmap outlines five building blocks that constitute a sound Internet marketing strategy:

Building Block #1 - Web Site Presence

Your Web site is the foundation and the hub of all of your marketing.

More than just passive online brochures, today's Web sites are active sales vehicles that should compel visitors to move forward in the sales process. Because your Web site often is a prospective purchaser's first impression of your community, it's important that you update it frequently, and that it is easy to navigate and content rich.

Most Web sites need to be redone every two to three years to be competitive with new Web technology and design trends. An outdated Web site can project a poor first impression that can be difficult to overcome because it can give visitors a false impression of your products, construction processes and customer service.

Building Block #2 - Web Site Marketing

Marketing a Web site without utilizing Internet marketing is like marketing a brand new community 50 miles from the nearest town with no signage, no roads and no entry monument. Without Internet marketing, your Web site essentially does not exist.

If your Web site can't be found on the first page of Google, Yahoo and the other important and popular search engines, how can you expect prospective buyers to find your community online?

To market your site properly, you have to provide online roads to your Web site - just like you develop physical roads and signage that lead prospects to your community. These online marketing options include referral sites, online display advertising such as banner ads, free listing sites, search engine optimization and paid search.

Building Block #3 - e-Lead Follow Up

Many builders don't know what happens to their e-leads and don't have a plan to manage and convert the electronic lead requests into onsite appointments and sales?

This building block ensures you get maximum ROI on your Web marketing with consistent follow-up. In any market, but especially today's market, you need to follow up until you get a yes or a no.

Follow-up must be one-on-one, personal and action-oriented. Either train your agents to conduct effective follow-up or, better yet, invest in a dedicated online sales counselor who can manage, follow up with and track all of your e-lead requests.

Building Block #4 - Online On-Site Marriage

Your Internet marketing strategy is almost complete, minus one critical piece - closing the sale.

How well does your on-site sales team close Internet prospects? Do they understand the value of the prospect, the high closing probability and how to adjust their presentation to meet the needs of the dot com active adult customer?

None of the previous building blocks matter if your team isn't ready, able and willing to close the sale.

Sales managers tend to focus so much time on finding willing and able prospects they forget to make sure the sales agents are ready. Train, coach and evaluate your sales team members regularly to make sure they are high quality, relationship-oriented and effective closers.

Building Block #5 - Measuring Results

As previously mentioned, the ability to track results is a huge benefit to e-marketing, but only if you take advantage of it.

The final step in the Builder eMarketing Strategy is ongoing measurement and refinement. Track all of your eMarketing media performance including:

• Web site
• Search engine marketing
• E-mail campaigns
• Referral Web site marketing
• Online display advertising
• Social media marketing

In addition to tracking the performance of your e-marketing media, also track your sales results with metrics including:

• Number of e-leads received
• Percentage of e-leads who set a firm on-site appointment
• Percentage of e-leads who kept the on-site appointment
• Percentage of e-leads with kept appointment to write a purchase agreement
• Percentage of e-leads without an appointment to write a purchase agreement
• Average length of time from e-lead inquiry to purchase agreement

Winning Under Pressure

A step-by-step marketing process will help ensure sales success even in difficult markets. It is still early in 2009 so, if you haven't done so already, take the time now to evaluate your marketing.

Start asking tough questions about what marketing tactics have and haven't worked. Be honest about how you arrived at your marketing decisions. Then, consider using a customer-centric strategic approach.

Map out a series of action steps to implement a marketing strategy. Finally, stick with the process and make time on a weekly basis to work through each step until the process becomes intuitive to your organization.

That's what Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods did to reach the height of their professions. They continued to practice routine fundamentals until their rituals helped deliver victory.

Tough markets don't last, but tough people - with tough processes - do.