Feed your eagles - Starve your turkeys!

Sales is the lifeblood of any business. Without sales you have no customers; without customers you have no revenue; without revenue you have nothing!

When I am looking at a business to invest in I focus a lot of time on the sales side of the house. I have found that a significant part of the answer as to whether to invest or not is with the customer base and sales pipeline.

It troubles me when an entrepreneur cannot clearly explain how they make, or plan to make money; what their sales targets are; who the sales prospects are; why the prospect would buy a product; and how much they are willing to pay. I like entrepreneurs and CEO's who, off the top of their head, can reel off their 3, 6 and 9 month sales pipelines and know their targets for this quarter and year.

These pipelines are roll-ups of the individual pipelines of each sales person in the company. Having a well populated pipe, with deals at varying stages of maturity is always a good sign for an investor. Having great sales people is key!

If your sales person is not field focussed, aggressive and pipeline driven, moving each deal through the sales process to a close, they are probably not the right person for the job.

If they relentlessly miss their targets or make excuses for why deals didn't close it is highly likely they are not destined to be on the sales A-list.

If you have a turkey in the sales department its best to put them out of their misery - fast! It may save your company.