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For most of our customers the time from Labour Day to the end of the calendar year is critical to ending the year on target. In April we quoted Skip Miller stating:

"If you, as a sales manager, do not know if you are going to make the year after the first quarter, the battle is over. Now you better be lucky"

Assuming you are not relying on luck there are a number of things you can do to not only ensure that you finish the year off right, but set yourself up for success in 2008.

Before we get to some specifics, there are a couple of themes that underlie the discussion. First is the reality of the length of you sales cycle, as we have discussed in the past each product or service has a logical sales cycle, if you looked at the last 30 or 40 sales (of a similar product or service) made by you and the team, the average length of your cycle will emerge, and while you can close some deals in less time, and some deals may go longer, most will conform to the average. (We understand that some are selling multiple products and services, and as such you need to track each of the different lengths if any)

So if you have an eight week cycle, anything you initiate after October 31, will hit next year. Can you bring some in this year, sure a bit of luck, a lot of skill, some may close earlier. Don’t be tempted to get them to close earlier with a price concession you will never recoup the revenue, have to continue to sell it to them at a depressed price, and word will get out and you may have to discount to some who are paying full price now. I’d rather see you work the deal and get it early next year that do irreparable harm for the short term.

You have to be on guard against bad deals, terms and pricing, customers are also aware of the implication of year end. I used to work for a data provider; clients paid an annual subscription fee to get access to the data. In a moment of desperation the leadership introduced an end of year promotion where clients who commit before December 15 would get an annual subscription for $30,000 vs. the standard $36,000. The hope was that next year they could be moved to the standard list price, even if the theory worked you never fully recoup the $6,000, and vast majority of the cases the theory did not work. At renewal time, clients would say that $30,000 is what it was worth, $30,000 is what they had budgeted, and if they couldn’t renew at $30,000 they would pass.

Some Specifics

Plan Reviews: This is a good time to review your Territory plan (you have one right). It is natural to deviate from the plan as the year gets going, client emergencies, and unexpected sales from a new source, changing markets what have. By going back and quickly reviewing your plan, you maybe able to take advantage of trends in the market or territory; based on events there maybe something that was not top priority at the start of the year that better fits the current climate. Similarly you can review individual Account plans, identifying where there may be an opportunity revive or initiate something you didn’t get around to earlier in the year. Something that even after distractions and time looks to have the attributes of something that will unfold in a predictable fashion and timeframe. Again, what you are looking for is overlooked opportunities that are real, not redoing the whole planning process.

Revisit Stalled Deals

As we go through the year, a number of opportunities that were progressing nicely, fall by the wayside, we call these Stalled opportunities. We moved on because we couldn’t get a next step, clients’ priorities change, budgets shifted, etc. Many of these deals are not all together dead, some are and let’s not waste time on those, but others are worth a second look. Many of my best clients initially stalled, after we reengaged, and circumstances change, we picked things up and made things work. Again, the idea is to see what if anything has changed in favour of a deal, not to try and get things out of a coma. The advantage is that since some of the preliminary work you did with them is already there, the sales cycle could in fact be shorter and make it this year’s business.

Revisit and Organize Lead Lists

In addition to ongoing prospecting that you are involved with, it is worth looking at your lists and really pushing the cream to the top. As stated above, this should not be a laborious or involved exercise. What you want is to make sure you call more of the people that have the attributes of good prospects who are ready to act now. You are following through on all referrals, leads and other contacts that have come your way through the year, all with an eye as to who may or is likely to act now. Notice we recommend that you call “more of” not “exclusively” the cream, the reason being that you do want to engage with folks that may close early in the New Year. There are a number of people I am speaking to now where we are setting meetings for mid-October, if I had a 4 month cycle like many do, that would likely be 2008 business, and hey we need it then too.

Recalibrate Activity Targets

As a subtext to the above areas is the opportunity to recalibrate your activities and related targets. The changes and impact of the above factors may necessitate that you do more prospecting in order to engage with the right number of prospects. They may require you to spend more time on working through Discovery with clients and work on resulting proposal. This may make for less prospecting, and if your ratios allow that then fine, but if they don’t you will have to rework other aspects of your time and how you manage it for maximum results.

Act

As with everything, at one point you have to put things into motion, all the planning in the world does not make things happen, you have to do that, no matter how great the plan, the profit is a result of execution. It’s time to act, leave the office, get out of the car, put down this article and get to it, do something to set things in motion.

If you would like more on how to succeed now and in the future please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

What's in Your Pipeline?

If you’d like to discuss and improve your pipeline and slaes, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , Principal with Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., and find out how Renbor has helped organization to fill their pipeline with real prospects - - driving real revenue.

For more information on helping your team sell better, write to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , visit http://www.sellbetter.ca or call 416 671-3555.