The other day I was working out in the gym when a guy asked me to spot him on the bench press. For those of you not familiar with the term "spot," it means to watch and assist the lifter if they need help. Of course, I agreed to do this. As is customary when spotting, I asked him how many reps (number of times lifting the weight) he planned to do.

In the days when customers would walk through your door, the first thing an entrepreneur would do is introduce themselves. "Hi, I'm John, what can I do for you today?" A warm handshake, a smile, and the customer relationship was established. This relationship is something that any salesperson will tell you, is sacred. Without this relationship, business will not be done and little will be accomplished.

You have been chasing this account for six months and feeling optimistic as the buying process is coming to a conclusion. The sale is between you and two other firms. The competition is fierce, but you feel you are ahead. At 11am, the Procurement Agent asks for three references to be provided to her by the end of the day. In a panic, you send a company-wide email in search of these referenceable clients.

"Happy people sell more," is a cliche that every manager hears but doesn't really listen to. Good morale seems to have a trickle down effect and when a manager is happy, everyone is happy. But to boost sales, everybody has to be happy even when the manager is not. Morale building through employee coaching has to be a real commitment by managers and owners alike.

Before the Civil War, Edmund McIlhenny operated a sugar plantation and a saltworks on Avery Island, Louisiana.

Yankee troops invaded the area in 1863 and McIlheey had to flee. When he returned in 1865 his sugar fields and saltworks were ruined.

One of the few things left were some hot Mexican peppers that had reseeded themselves in the kitchen garden.

A man walked into the Fairbanks, Alaska, Nordstrom department store with two snow tires. He walked up to the counter, put the tires down and asked for his money back. The clerk, who'd been working there for two weeks, saw the price on the side of the tires, reached into the cash register and handed the man $145.

The customer wanted to return the tires.

This is the time of year when salespeople begin to reflect on their performance. Was it a good year? Was it a great year? Some will say they earned the dollars they desired, so it was a great year. Others will hang their hat on an account that they won and say it was a good year. However, as Joe Torre, former manager of the New York Yankees recently learned, employers have a single data point for measuring success that dwarfs all other statistics.

Albert Einstein formulated the theory that says that space and time are relative concepts rather than absolute concepts. For example, consider a car speedometer reading at 65 miles per hour. How fast is the car going? This question seems like the beginning of the joke of who is buried in Grant's tomb and you are expecting a punch line. No joke here, I assure you.

As I have been traveling around the country speaking I continually hear, "Business is down. The market is changing. The customers are changing. It is not like it use to be. The economy is killing us. Being in business is much harder than it use to be."

Well let's compare the past with today. As I remember in the 80's and 90's when the gas prices jumped up and up, although they never got as high as they are today it did not matter, our customers and us could not even buy gas.

Like any business you spend up to 10 times more money to get a customer than you do to get the customer back and make a second purchase, which is why with any business you want to have a very strong focus on retention of customers and working on your existing customers to keep buying from your business.

As a business owner you would have invested a lot of money on front end marketing to build your database so now it is time to utilise your database to increase your sales and explode your profits.