improve your cashflow by developing your

Today's news headlines paint a bleak picture for business, inadvertently influencing reality. Nevertheless, you need to ignore the negative press and focus all of your efforts on building your business.So let's look at increasing your average dollar sale as a positive cashflow strategy. Besides the profit margin strategies of raising your prices and cutting costs, growing your average dollar sale is the cheapest and easiest way to build profit -- which makes it a very important number to measure. To derive your average dollar sale, divide your total sales over the period you are measuring by the number of transactions. It would also be useful to break down your average dollar sale by emplyee, customer, etc.Growing your average dollar sale involves marketing with a keen eye on sales, so let's start there. It doesn't matter if you don't have "sales staff" because everyone in your business is responsible for marketing your company. That being said, why not hire a sales professional? Now is just the time for this kind of investment.For those who do have sales staff: what are you doing to support them? It blows my mind when I hear of companies that lay off salespeople in the wake of economic stress. I'm equally stunned by the absurdity of companies that cap their salespeople's commissions. That's like cutting your hamstring because you have a cramp. Your sales staff supplies your business with its lifeblood, and they should be compensated royally for it.Of course, you need to move your underperforming sales reps up or out. Why not create sales scripts and training by having your weak reps shadow your strong ones? This will be a boost for both sides. There is psychology involved in selling that you need to understand. Those who scoff at this will find themselves on the outside looking in. How often do you send your staff to formal sales training? How many books, CD's and videos do you and your staff study on the subject? Why not create an in-house study club?Not only can you discuss what you learn, you can also role-play and practice before taking it to prime-time where you must be successful. Become sales scholars. After educating your team in sales, you then need to inspire them to go and make it happen. Do you have team and individual sales goals?If not, work with your team and set them right now. Post the results and celebrate the wins. Sales-minded people are inherently competitive, and some friendly in-house competition is a good thing. Reward the top few performers with recognition and perks, like special parking spaces or tickets to sporting events.All the while, encourage teamwork by recognizing team goals, and by prompting discussion when there are opportunities for improvement -- even when that means you might face criticism. Focus on the success of your team; they will take care of the rest.

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