If done right, seasonal downtime for a sales team can be one of the most profitable prep periods of the year.
Do you want to improve your sales or do want to spend time making excuses about why a quiet period isn’t good for business? It can be a godsend. Here are five tips to make sure you don’t miss out.
1. Clean out Your CRM
When things start to pick up again, how much more money do you think you’ll make if your leads piles have been meticulously cleaned out and prioritized so your hottest leads are at the top and anything completely dead is removed? That’s right; a lot more. A quiet period affords you the opportunity to do proper research on your individual leads and make sure they’re in serious money order. Get on Google. Get creative. Figure out where the money is.
2. Pre-Empt Potential Lost Relationships via LinkedIn
I talk about the blessing of LinkedIn regularly and here’s another way to use it. Have you ever been in a situation where your relationship with a contact at company ends because that contact moves on? The contact’s replacement within that organization brings their own vendor. Make sure your notifications are properly set up on LinkedIn and scan over your most important clients to make sure this hasn’t happened with the change of seasons.
3. Create Valuable Content for Your Customers
It’s no secret that content marketing is one of the best ways to see a return on marketing investment these days and this is largely to do with the fact that it leads with value instead of a hard sales pitch. Consider creating content that will peak your prospect’s interests and prime them not only for a sale later on, but a better relationship in between now and when that time comes.
4. Checkout Business to Business Industry Events
Relationships are (by a huge margin) the single most important aspect of business to business selling. Everything starts with the relationship, so downtime means it’s time to sow some seeds. Snoop out industry events, identify potential prospects and get in there for a handshake and introduction, maybe even creating some content for them, too. Get your name and your face across in a no-pressure environment so you can capitalize on it later.
5. Annual Changing Legislation
Here’s a one I bet you’ve never heard of… Every year, each U.S state publishes a PDF document outlining a number of legal changes within that state and all kinds of small, medium and even large businesses are affected. Time for some light reading. Dig out the relevant changes for your state, read up and make notes of which of your clients will be affected by the different law changes. Next, hit the phones. Bringing something to the attention of your prospects about such an important legal matter firmly positions you miles ahead of your competition. Enjoy reaping the benefits.
