We are almost halfway through the fourth quarter of this year. Are you forecasting to end the year strong, or are you worried about how far off goal you will be at the end of the year? According to sales expert, Mike Brooks, it’s not too late to push forward to make the fourth quarter a success. It just might require an adjustment of your sales activities. Read his sales tips in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.
1. Call every existing customer and client you have to get a firm idea of what their end-of-the-year needs are going to be. The last thing you want to do is let your existing business (often called the “low-hanging fruit”) go to a competitor who got there first. Then, do what you can to capture the sales quickly. That might mean getting a sample to them, creating an advanced order or taking other steps to make ordering fast and convenient for the customer.
2. Next, take the same approach with a short list of key prospects that you’ve identified and have been working on. Once again, contact them and do the same thing—arrange a time for your presentation or set a date for service to be delivered, create an urgency for the end of the year and let them know that you’ve penciled them in to take care of their needs. If you can, send them an interesting email or mail them a self-promotion item. It’s crucial that you connect now, and give them something so they’ll be thinking about your company when their needs arise.
3. Schedule the training you need now. Take steps to keep your sales and customer service teams sharp, get them effective scripts and teach them the most effective techniques so they are ready to go when the business is flying.
4. Quick, can you state what your revenue goals are for the fourth quarter? You must set your exact sales forecast now and begin affirming their result against goal. You will produce exactly what you think you will, and for this reason it’s so important to identify, in advance, what that revenue figure is going to be.
5. Commit to making just 10 more prospecting calls per day for the rest of the year. That might sound like a lot, but think how many more deals and dollars that could mean in your pocket. This will set you apart from the masses of sales professionals who have given up reaching their year-end goals.
Try these tips to make your fourth quarter the most successful quarter of the year.
Source: Mike Brooks “Mr. Inside Sales” is the recognized authority on inside sales. Voted one of the most Influential Inside Sales Professionals by The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals for the past five years in a row, Brooks is the go-to inside sales trainer and phone scriptwriter in the industry and best-selling author of The Ultimate Book of Phone Scripts which Brian Tracy calls “One of the best books on inside sales phone scripts I’ve seen.” Brooks is hired by business owners to implement proven sales processes that help them immediately scale and grow multi-million-dollar inside sales teams.
