As promised last week, today’s column addresses a customizable tool that will enable anyone to be a more effective salesperson. The only requirement is personal discipline and commitment.

In this challenging business environment, most entrepreneurial managers clearly understand the need to drive the revenue line and the key success factor in this pursuit is a good salesperson.

But what a lot of small business sales managers overlook is that there are a couple of process improvements that they can quickly and inexpensively implement.

Successfully done, these can allow the good salespeople to be great, the average to be good, and even the worst to be better than they were.

A sales call costs money, therefore it is imperative that every company get the most out of this money on every call. Obviously the maximum benefit is the receiving of an order, but we all know that this is not going to happen every time.

A secondary benefit then becomes useful information. It might be in the form of future plans, desired benefits, competitive offerings, etc. The key here is a process where the information is captured and utilized by the company. Fortunately there are many software programs that streamline this process but it still depends on the input of the salesperson.

For some reason, a number of small business managers seem to have trouble obtaining this information from their salespeople. Simply implementing a policy that says that no expense accounts will be processed without accompanying and documented sales calls will do wonders to alleviate this problem.

But how do you make the actual sales call itself more effective? Ignoring for a second the proper pre-sales screening and product knowledge, what can we do when we are face to face with a prospect to significantly enhance our probability of success?

Most of us have noticed that encounters with professional salespeople almost always involve the professional asking a series of insightful questions, with answers being given, notes being taken and a resulting flow in a decision process. What a lot of customers don’t realize is that this flow is not by accident.

These professionals are following, for lack of a better term, a script or roadmap. Not leaving the contents solely to memory or strength of personality, their map includes personal reminders of what to ask, insights from previous meetings if applicable, quick guides for communication styles, as well as personal reminders for listening reinforcements.

Having this layout enables them to proceed worry free through the communication process and frees them up to concentrate on problem and solution identification for the customer. The utilization of the selling time is significantly improved to the benefit of both the customer and the company.

In this age of Internet commerce, there is still a place, a need, even a requirement for face-to-face selling. But it is expensive. Do yourself a favor and design your own map for success for your next sales call. By being better prepared, you’ll be more relaxed and confident and you’ll do a better job assisting your customer. In the end, you will make more sales.

John F. Riddell Jr., director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth-Hamilton County, writes every other Tuesday about entrepreneurs and their impact on companies and the marketplace. Submit comments to his attention by writing to Business Editor John Vass Jr., Chattanooga Times Free Press, P.O. Box 1447, Chattanooga, TN 37401-1447, or by e-mailing him at business@timesfreepress.com.