The sales force, you can't live with them, and you can't live without them. Although only a few members of your firm have the "sales" designation, title, and responsibility, everyone in your firm is an integral part of the sales team and sales effort. Understanding the limits of your sales team will help you establish greater control over your firm's revenue and profits.

The FIRST of three limits to your sales efforts is time. You can't buy more time no matter how wealthy you become. However, you can become wealthy by managing your time more wisely. The return on your investment when you teach time management skills to your team is virtually unlimited. Although time is a limitation, it is not a barrier to success. Use time wisely and watch you revenue and profits soar and eliminate finger pointing and whining within your firm.

The SECOND limitation is resources. You must teach and train your team to properly utilize the existing resources and make it a habit to continuously search for, create and/or purchase additional resources for use in the sales process. Don't forget to utilize free or otherwise low cost resources such as books and audio tapes.

Energy is the THIRD and final limitation to your sales effort and one of the most overlooked. Energy is the excitement and positive enthusiasm exhibited by your entire staff. Energy is always created on purpose, it does not happen accidentally and it is totally infectious. Use your own ingenuity to create an energetic environment. Celebrate often (birthdays, anniversaries, record sales weeks, perfect attendance, etc) and create friendly competitions with awards, prizes and public praise. Creating a fun working environment is critical to creating a high energy team.