This is the last week of the summer for sales professionals. After this weekend, it’s a rush to the holidays for many of your customers. You’ll be receiving emails and voicemails like “sorry for the delay, but we’re ready to move forward”, “can you come by this afternoon at 4:30 to review the quote you did in April?”, and “now that summer is over, let’s get this going.” It’s possible that you’ll start receiving these messages on Tuesday morning of next week, and it’ll be a madhouse until the holiday break.
So, what’s the best thing you can do this week? Get a massage? Spend time with your kids? Catch up on those pesky expense reports? All good ideas, but the best thing you can do this week is a little counterintuitive…
The best thing a sales person can do the week before Labor Day is to define their weekly process and commit to it.
Well, that might be the most boring advice you’ve ever received, but it might be the best, too. Sales are created by a process of activity. The types of activity have changed in the last decade or so, but the formula is still the same: Consistent Activity * Time = Success. Unfortunately, the chaos that starts next week and collides with football season, fall festivals, Thanksgiving, and the holidays throws most sales people into survival mode. Then we wake up after New Year’s and realize that our pipeline is dismal, our best customers haven’t seen us in months and may be working with someone else, and the brilliant perception we were creating on social media has dissolved.
Unless you maintain a weekly process. A few best practices for your process during the last four months:
- Be realistic. It’s better to commit to ten prospecting touches per week and reach that goal than commit to fifty and never do any because the goal is so daunting.
- Orders slow down the second two weeks of November and December, but your activity shouldn’t. Plan to stay in the field and grind out those calls and customer visits during those slow weeks.
- Plan your activity very early in the morning. Again, the chaos will happen, but it usually wakes up at 8:30 or so.
Set aside a couple hours this week to plan your weekly process for the rest of the year, and make sure you commit to it.
