How many New Year’s resolutions seek to provide a “fresh start” in January? Whether personal or professional, resolutions lose steam largely due to lack of preparedness. If you’ve pledged that 2020 will be the year you implement a well-defined sales strategy, realize that it’s going to take time to roll out.
To maximize your chances of success and hit the ground running, you need to start now.
B2B sales tend to slow down in December. At best, you have the first two weeks of December to prospect and close deals. Beyond that, customer and staff appreciation – and of course the holidays – become a focal point and sales teams slow down significantly. Sales don’t typically pick up again until the second week of January. That gives a roughly four-week window to prepare for a great start to the new year.
Maximize December Downtime and Hit the Ground Running in January
If you’re launching a new lead generation strategy for January, it’ll take time to implement. Start now to avoid squandering prime selling time when sales begin to heat up again. There are many good uses of your downtime in the final weeks of December, and they’ll all help build your sales success in the coming months.
Hit the ground running and maximize your sales in January by following these three tips:
Overcome Seasonal Sales Slumps: Maximize Prime Selling Time
B2B sales in Canada tend to be inconsistent throughout the year. Sales typically dip during the prime vacation months of July and August and again in December.
To be efficient and out-hustle the competition, minimize the prime selling time you spend on planning and implementation of new marketing initiatives. Where possible, take advantage of slower months to do most of the preparation and setup.
Be Proactive: Establish a Sales Performance Baseline
If you plan to implement an innovative sales strategy in the new year, establish a benchmark to measure its effectiveness. If going from structureless to a structured process, you might not have a readily available baseline to compare against. In this case, take some time to gather and analyze data to create one.
This takes time and you obviously don’t want to spend prime selling time to do this. December being a slower month is a great time for this type of project.
Diversify Your Pipeline: Prospect & Prepare for Economic Recession
Many fiscal indicators are pointing toward a coming recession or at least an economic slowdown. Your best defense is to get ahead of it and go into turbulent times with a full and diverse sales funnel. Not only do you need a lot of opportunities in your funnel, but they should be spread out among several verticals including some less prone to the effects of recession. Mitigating risk through diversity is key and this requires proactive effort.
To use a flood analogy, if you know the river is going to breach it’s banks, you need to lay down sandbags before it happens, not while it’s pouring in your front door. The more time you give yourself now to prospect for new opportunities, the better off you’ll be when bad times happen.
Get a Fresh Start in 2020: Build Your Sales Engine
While it’s easy to “check out” and procrastinate in December, fight that urge. Don’t let your plans for a “fresh start in January” get derailed. Carve out some time in the coming weeks to give yourself a running start at 2020!
To learn more about sales strategies that will help your business hit the ground running in January, download the Frugal Tactics for Building Your Sales Engine white paper.
