I don’t want to say that keeping everything on multiple accounts together is easy or to over simplify the situation and say I look at only one factor when making decisions, but it can be a powerful tool.  A good sales pipeline should have deals in all stages of completion, no matter how long the cycle.  After ramping up, a good team is generating, maturing and closing deals each day and week.  When there are holes in one of those activities, a red flag shoots up and makes you re-evaluate how your bandwidth is deployed.  It can also indicate where there are personnel issues, when someone is dissatisfied and not focused or disenfranchised with the opportunity presented to them.  When you find the hole, make sure that the sales person has the right tools, training and guidance to get the sale and then work with them to plug the hole and move on to the next team.  Using this method, you can efficiently and effectively keep track of accounts no matter their size, product position or price or sales cycle.  Schedule weekly meetings with your teams to do pipeline review and defense sessions and see where you stand.  It is important in this process that you challenge your sales people and make them defend why someone is at a 50% chance to close or why they are not projected until Q3 of 2010.  As you refine and improve their ability to forecast the status of their deals, the more accurate your pipeline tool becomes in managing and monitoring their path towards success.  After awhile and building a level of trust, this snapshot can become your daily touch on each account and open your schedule to work with the less experienced and developed sales people and help them more in their careers.

Sales forces in particular are especially vulnerable to straying the course in pursuit of a buck. While tougher times invariably require more work from salespeople – more phone calls, meetings, and networking – implementing a few of these free sales tips in the philosophy that guides their sales team will serve companies at all times – and especially well during tougher times like now.

1. The customer wants to know how your product addresses their needs. Be a problem solver before a pitchman.
2. Networking is the essence of sales. The more people you meet and get to know, the more people will be receptive to your products and services (as clients) and the broader spectrum of expertise you’ll have to draw from in order to help you grow.
3. Be friendly and make friends – friends are more trustworthy (and more accountable) than ’salespeople.’
4. Be confident. Demonstrating confidence in your product or service is an absolute prerequisite for building the customer’s confidence in what you’re offering.
5. Knowing a product cold isn’t enough to sell it – but it’s a good start. A great attitude – friendly, confident, enthusiastic is most of the battle, but knowing the product well will make it easier to sell to customers with a wider range of needs.
6. Never “sell.” – Laying it on thick is not only disingenuous and unethical, it’s also rarely successful.
7. Have fun. Someone who is smiling and laughing, and making the client smile and laugh, is someone from whom the client will always prefer to buy.
8. Be a good person. Being honest and generous will not only boost the confidence so important to being a good salesperson – it’s just the right way to be. (Of course, tip #2 is relevant here as well.)

These free sales tips are just a few that can help guide companies’ salespeople through good markets and bad markets alike. While sales strategies and tactics should be adapted to meet goals, companies are ill-advised to stray from these guidelines, which are ingrained in the marrow of the world’s best salespeople.

The first tip that I found that I thought would be helpful was to host a huge grand opening to introduce my store to the community. I would provide free snacks and refreshments and give potential customers the opportunity to browse through my store without any pressure to buy a thing.

This way they could look through all of the vintage purses and jewelry that I had, sip on some coffee or tea and eat some of the lovely pastries that I had brought in. The grand opening idea was very successful in attracting customers to come and check out my merchandise. Many people were pleasantly surprised to find vintage treasures mixed in with the typical candles and glass figurines that they were used to finding in a gift shop.

Some of the other free sales tips that I found also encouraged me to design the set-up of my store to make it as comfortable and welcoming as possible. Fortunately, I was working with a rather large space so I purchased some used arm chairs, re-upholstered them myself, and set them up on a rug with a coffee table so shoppers could take a short break and sit down and examine the merchandise before buying it. This worked out wonderfully when I had jewelry buyers who wanted to take a seat, try on a few different items, look into a mirror and then decide. It also came in handy for little children who grew bored while their mother was still browsing. I even placed a magazine rack full of children’s books next to the chairs so that they could entertain themselves for a bit.

I was very pleased with the free sales tips that I learned from several on-line resources. I realized that a few small thoughtful sales strategies could make a rather impressive difference.