End of one sales month, and the beginning of another. Just a turn of the page in the digital sales book, but a wakeup to the fact that the quarter is one third over and rapidly racing towards the end of June. I actually love the 2nd quarter since it still retains all of the excitement and energy of the new year kickoff...way back in January... plus we now have four months of real customer experience under our belts. Better to update sales plans and tweak selling tactics for the balance of the year.
With a new page in the calendar on Sunday morning, I always take a 360 degree view of my personal sales landscape at about 100 feet off the deck. Close enough that I can get perspective of what worked...and didn't...last month-last quarter, and yet sufficiently far enough away from the day-to-day, that I can hopefully gain perspective. How much do I need to hunt down between now and the end of May and June? How much available time do I and the rest of the guys actually have?
So, the first thing that I noticed this past weekend when I was running through this exercise is that I have just around 50 work days left between now the 4th of July. Always a surprise for me is the fact that these holidays and things like last month's school vacations just jump out of nowhere and screw up my carefully planned sales activities. And then surprise of surprises, I remembered that people actually take vacations during the summer. Again, pretty inconsiderate of them given my perfectly planned sales activities, trips and sales management boot camps that we've scheduled.
Considering all of this, just a couple of sales optimization tactics to consider this week while we're still at the beginning of May and have plenty of time left:
Tactic#1: Calendar Out Your Sales Summer Now
It's time to map out your calendar through the summer. Sounds early, but not really and especially if you're going to think Tactic #2 which follows. First, you should carefully think about your own vacation plans. Second, it's totally okay to ask your major customers what their plans are for the summer. One, it shows interest, and two it prevents embarrasment when you're up against the quota wall in August desparate for a signature, and you only then realize that your Champion is out on a long-planned vacation.
Tactic #2: Plan a Customer Summer Sales Event
Nothing is better for relationship strengthening than a small, focused, invitation-only, peer group summer event. Maybe it's golf at your club, maybe it's a catered summer networking evening overlooking the harbor, or perhaps a focused speaker over a barbecue at the office. The key is that (1) it's small and focused (2) it's among peers, and (3), it's logistically perfect. It becomes a lasting event that will be well remembered during the dark days of next February.
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Just a couple of simple tactics to keep the juices going as we settle into the next 8 weeks to finish this quarter. Check out a couple other ideas at our Sales Solution Center which we are in the process of populating with the launch of our new site. We are also looking for other sales management junkies to contribute their own ideas here.
Good Selling !
