Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I checked out the extruding text on a curved surface post and was able to do that without a problem.

However, I'm finding I'm having a problem doing a simple extraction along these lines:

If I create a solid cylinder and trim a circle out of its side and try to extrude that circle (similar to the way you do text) I find that the etrusion only slides along the surface parallel to the cylinder wall. I cannot get it to extrude perpendicular to the wall. Why does it work for the text extrusion but not in this case?

Thanks

Brian