Here are simple effective ways to multiply sales quickly with nothing more than telephone and your smiling face.

I'm not talking about canvassing from one neighborhood to next getting door slammed in your face. These techniques work best to get sales from:

* Customers who have bought from you recently. * Old customers who haven't purchased in a while. * Prospects who have shown an interest, but never bought. * People who have a good reason to buy from you, but haven't heard about you yet.

You can already see you are in pretty friendly territory. Seventy-five percent of people in this list are VERY likely to buy. So why not get in touch? Give them opportunity to let you help them.

Start by making a list of customers and prospects you will contact. Unless you have a team of helpers, keep your list small enough to service over course of next few weeks.

When working alone, I usually make my list no longer than 10 customers per week with a maximum of 50 to reach in five to six weeks. This is fairly lesurely. If you have desire or need money, you might go for 30 to 50 per week.

Start with a phone call. It can sound like this:

"Hello John! This is Melinda Smith at Smith Technology. We talked last month when our guy was out to fix your computer. How are you?.......John, if you have just a moment---This month we're offering a PC tune-up that increases your computer's speed and eliminates all those crashes."

If John is interested, you are off and running toward a sale. But what if John is a bit hesitant? Tell him you have several different things that can save him time, hassles, and money. Offer to stop by and show him in a face-to-face visit.

"John, this will only take a few minutes and it could save you a great deal of grief for months. Would Monday at 2 or Wednesday at 10 work for you?"

I like to give customers a choice of two appointment times. You are giving them a choice while using a firm hand to get a commitment.