Increase Your Summer Energy
6 idea’s
Every salesperson and all sales leaders at this time of year must focus on maintaining or even increasing their levels of energy-especially for the months of July/August. With vacations, a summer attitude of relaxation and with the first half of the year completed many sales teams take a deep breath and coast. Just the opposite should be true, this is a great time to accelerate sales during the summer and focus on activities to position the organization for the end of the year.
What can you do when the natural tendency is to take time to enjoy the time of year?
- Focus on attitude. I have written often that if it isn’t fun-it isn’t selling so include team building activities into your plan. One idea is for the sales team to host and serve lunch for the rest of the employees at the office (as a ways of saying thank you. Plan a fun activity during or after lunch as well. Or if that is not possible, increase the level of celebration of any sales/wins, perhaps having the VP or President of the company reach out to the salesperson to say thank you.
- Visit your current customers. If possible socialize with them at a Customer Appreciation event or one on one dinners. Some of my clients have rented a boat for the evening with a buffet dinner-taking time to enjoy the summer evening along with seeking a better understanding of how your services benefited the client and keeping an eye out for additional sales opportunities or referrals to other prospects.
- Put a bounce in your step. When someone asks me: How are you today? Depending upon the day of week: Monday’s I am Marvelous!, Tuesday is Terrific!, Wednesday is Wonderful! Thursday’s are Tremendous! And Friday’s are Fabulous! Your prospects need their energy boosted as well-become the energizer.
- Increase the levels of activity that will lead to a huge pipeline in September and into the fourth quarter. This could be a sales game or just an increased letter of attention to make 5 additional calls each week.
- Hold salesperson team strategy meetings. Once a week assign salespeople to work in teams of 2 or 3, encouraging them to coach and challenge each other on individual sales opportunities or sales activity campaigns.
- Start early. In many companies summer hours start early and you might discover you can talk to prospects earlier in the morning. Best day to prospect BTW is Thursday.
I am certainly not saying you should not enjoy summer and take advantage of golf, boating, hiking, camping or whatever your enjoyment is, but remember, selling is about emotion. You must have it, you must transfer it and orders are signed because of it. What are you idea’s to increase your energy level?
Ken Thoreson “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 17 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for organizations throughout the world.
He was recently ranked for the third year in a row by Top Sales World magazine as one of the Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencers for 2015.
Ken has written 5 books, his latest book is: SLAMMED! for First Time Sales Managers, Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance. Need more sales management resources? Check out his Sales Management Tool Kit or the Acumen Project.
Ken@AcumenMgmt.com www.AcumenManagement.com
Blog: www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com