It's important for your business to be on top of sales. Here are some tips to improve you sales skills.

Sales trainer and author Doug Malouf says the trick to getting the sales results is to get out there and do the work, and stay positive. Doug says if you do nothing, nothing happens.

1. Get absolutely organised.
Time equals money. So getting absolutely organised is the first key to good selling. One of the problems of today is confusing activity with productivity. So, some simple ground rules are:
o Never start the day without a to-do list and focus on activities that will produce results
o If you want to increase your sales, increase your MUST DO activities.

Accompanying this article is a checklist. Have a run through it to see what your current level of organisation is like.

2. Consistently prospect for new business.
When your busy line goes up, your prospecting line goes down, and vice versa. Prospecting is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as soon as you get to the end you have to start again.

3. Over-service your existing clients.
Over- servicing your clients means communicating more. Make sure that there are no sudden surprises with the transaction. In fact today's top sellers are partners to their clients.

4. Set up an after sales service system.
We used to think that after sales service was the ersponsibility of the electrical appliance sellers. We now know that the companies that After Sales Service their clients will be around for a long time. So what can you do to after sales service your clients? Simple things make all the difference. Use two words – "Thank you." Send out thank you cards, make phone calls, follow up to make sure that they are happy with the transaction.

5. Stay motivated.
In selling attitude is everything. You have to have a strong self-image, believe in your product, and believe in the company that you are working with. If any of these functions are out of order, your motivation levels will be affected. Invest in self, the experts say that we need 40 hours of classroom training per year, read 10 business books per year and listen to 10 audio tapes. By mixing with motivated people you don't become so problem centred, you become solution focused.

When you're a hard-working small-business owner, there are few things in this life more rewarding than seeing your business bloom. After all, you've worked hard to set it up; you've invested hours of your time to help it grow, and you've tried to give the best customer service you know how. You deserve success!

But sometimes that success doesn't come as quickly as you'd like. You and your staff always seem to be flat out; you know there's a steady market out there for your product, but things are… well, slow. What's going wrong?

In a nutshell, it comes down to organisation. The management of any successful small business has to organise itself, its staff and its systems.

Bill Bonnstetter, the international business educator, believes that 85 per cent of effective customer service rests on effective systems. And when you think about it, the world's biggest businesses – such as McDonald's or Qantas, have systems that focus on people performance.

To perform to the best of their ability, staff have to know the correct procedure to follow in any instance; from something as simple as ordering a pen to efficient stock control. They need to know who is in charge of doing what. They need to be able to file and retrieve information quickly.

By Peter Switzer, published on 28/05/2009

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