Everyone in your business who communicates to customers is a salesperson.

Everyone in your business who communicates to customers can make more sales happen.

The scary part is everyone in your business who talks to customers can also stop the sale happening.

I recently bought a £1000/$1200 product and called the company's customer service department with a question about the product that I needed sorting. The first thing they asked me was if I wanted a refund! The owner of that business needs to realise that their customer service people are sales people. They can influence the sale and a good place to start would be by not trying to reverse the sale.

We call this the sales prevention department. If you employ people who talk to customers, you need to make sure they're not managing your sales prevention department.

This is a major problem in growing businesses. It's made worse by the fact that some employees resent you, the Entrepreneur. They think you're ‘lucky.’ They haven't the beginnings of an idea what it took to create your success. They won't bring up their resentment to your face, but they will end, up either consciously or subconsciously sabotaging your sales.

Anyone in your business who communicates to customers' needs training, and they need policing. You should be able to listen to customer service calls, and if you really want to see how much money you're losing, you should have people cold call your business and record the calls. I warn you in advance, it can be a painful experience but not doing it is like avoiding a trip to the dentist because your tooth hurts. The problem ain't going away by ignoring it.

So everyone in your business who talks to customers is a salesperson. If you think the receptionist who answers your phone isn't a salesperson involved in the sales process, you'll want to think again. Anybody involved in the sales process needs to be trained in how to sell and ideally compensated in a way that is linked to the sales.