The automakers are not the only ones who get a jump start on the upcoming year, by the time you will be reading this it will be mid November, leaving about six selling weeks in 2009, a year few will be sad to see go; take out Thanksgiving (USA), and the seasonal holidays, and you are looking at about five weeks of productive time. It is around the time of year that people begin to focus on closing the year on target by trying to “make those deals now”. There is no denying that there needs to be a focus on trying to do as much as you can (without discounting or cheating) to salvage a year or to bring in revenue NOW. The challenge is to do it in a way that does not adversely impact other aspects of your on going success.

It is an old familiar challenge, we are all familiar with the “You can pay me now or pay me later” syndrome. The reality is that if you have a sales cycle longer than five weeks, most of your prospecting as of now will likely be a 2010 revenue. Look at it differently if you ease up on your prospecting now to “close”, you are going to pay for it in 2010. You need to redouble your efforts right across the board to ensure no let down January 2nd, because I’ll bet you any amount you’ll have a new Target January 1st, and it may just be higher than your number was for 2009.

So what can you do?

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