I love this time of year. Not for the sunshine, singing birds and the warmth of the summer months coming, but rather, for the lie that everyone tells themselves about sales for this time of year.
The lie that says: “No one buys during the summer.” or: “Everyone is either on holidays or thinking about their holidays and not the business.”
If only those were true. However, how many of us fall for the great summer lie? This time of year could be the most productive time of the year for you if you change certain behaviors which will take you from salesperson to sales professional.
First, look at the lies you are telling yourself. Do businesses really close down during the summer? There is commerce happening during this time of the year. You have to find how to get part of that commerce. It may be as simple as investing in a seasonal unique product.
Secondly, if you cannot invest in a seasonal product, the season is not lost. This would be the time to strengthen your bonding and rapport with your highest revenue producing clients. When I was in corporate life, this was the time of the year that my expenses were the highest as I took those high revenue producing clients to a nice leisurely lunch on a sunny patio, etc.
Thirdly, a great time to invest more time in that second tier of revenue-producing clientele. You know the ones, those which are not completely convinced or dare I say it, not completely trust your message yet. Stay in their sight and make yourself memorable in that you were there when your competition was not. Nothing builds trust more than being there to help them through challenges.
Fourth, this is the time to prospect hard. Yes, they may take a week or three off, but that still leaves nine plus weeks that they are around. Introduce yourself, work your system. Again, stay top of mind and if you need help on the system that rarely misses, not my words, but rather those have used it after gaining the knowledge and tools required, join us at The Action Suite. Besides Christmas time, this was the time of year which I got the more new clients. However, I did it the right way, which is what I teach now in The Action Suite.
Fifth, bring your creativity. This is the time to double down on your marketing and do the unexpected. There are endless possibilities for this. A few that my team and I would do were; put a few items at a reduced price and give the owner the option of buying now and take delivery now, or, buy now and get delivery in September. By the way, the sale NEVER carried into September. I hope you also noticed the word, or. If you took it now, you could not do another order for September. Offer a 30/60/90 payment plan based reaching a certain threshold of the order. An incentive to the company based on units purchased. As well as, continual marketing. Our team put the ‘pedal to the metal’ for personal visits. Our return on investment was phenomenal.
It was really humorous when our competition, who bought into the lies about summer, would go back in September and find the shelves full of our product, or the client was awaiting the order they placed during the summer, but for delivery in September. Also, those that had challenges and we were able to solve it for them all of a sudden liked us a whole lot more.
We did the above every summer and for some reason, the competition never caught on as to what we were doing and how we were getting the customers during the ‘dead time.’
Not giving in to the summer lie allows you to become the winner you were meant to be.
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