Summers are getting longer. Your sales pipeline isn’t.

Sales productivity matters

Is it just us, or does summer seem to last longer these days? Maybe police officers are getting younger and Mars bars are getting smaller too.

When I started work in the midlands, the whole region shut down for Industrial Fortnight. Two weeks in the summer when Wolverhampton headed to Weston-Super-Mare to drink more than was healthy and you could hear a pin drop in the steelworks of Smethwick.

Now the whole of the UK seems to be on half time for the whole of July and August. No wonder the country has a productivity problem.

You imagine people still receive the same number of days’ holiday but somehow response times are slower and decision cycles longer.

You can’t blame teenagers for indulging in a lazy summer after GCSEs or A Levels. After all, they can’t make decisions until results day in August. There’s good reason for them to party hard until reality kicks back in.

But this year the business problem is worse.

It’s gonna be a long, hot summer

On top of all the usual turmoil of geopolitics and government policy we’re coping with:

Weather. We’ve had the hottest May and June on record and our infrastructure isn’t set up to cope. You might hope to escape it in an air-conditioned office but reality quickly kicks in when nursery schools send home your children and you’re suddenly juggling child care responsibilities with the day job

World cup. The longest world cup in history is just another reason to enjoy the heat while crossing your fingers hard enough to break. Late night matches mean bleary-eyed employees idling at their desks the next morning and distracted conversations about the injustice of VAR

For a lot of reasons it’s tempting to join the hoards and take it easy until September.

But it’s the end of June. The year is half done.

If you coast over the summer then all your revenue eggs are in one basket marked September onwards. And let’s face it, not much happens in December either.

Maybe clients will be more difficult to reach over coming weeks, but if you lay strong foundations now then you could have a big impact on what happens as the weather turns later in the year.

Five selling actions you can take while your clients are on the beach

Build your AI customer strategy. Everyone is talking about AI now, but outside global enterprises not many sales organisations have an actionable strategy. There’s still time to get ahead. The basic components are speeding up how you approach client research, or how you prioritise deals in your pipeline. Much more valuable is looking at how AI can help free up time for your sales people (even if your sales “team” is yours truly) so you close more deals at a faster speed.

Build your AI customer strategy. Everyone is talking about AI now, but outside global enterprises not many sales organisations have an actionable strategy. There’s still time to get ahead. The basic components are speeding up how you approach client research, or how you prioritise deals in your pipeline. Much more valuable is looking at how AI can help free up time for your sales people (even if your sales “team” is yours truly) so you close more deals at a faster speed.

Clean up your sales pipeline. You know those opportunities that have been frustrating you all year? Now’s a good time to issue ultimatums. Push clients a bit harder, add a deadline to the cost you originally quoted. Or just walk away. When everyone is back at it in September you want a clean pipeline that you’re energised to deliver, not some prospects marked Hopeful

Revisit your ideal customer profile (ICP). It’s been another tumultuous year so take another look at your value proposition. Are the core products and services you were confident in back in January still the same? What’s shifted in your customers’ world…and do customer and proposition still line up?

Kick-start your Prospect list. Killing off slow-moving opportunities might make your pipeline seem thinner. So partner this with a deliberate plan to revisit the potential under your nose. What additional services can you add to current clients? Which previous clients have you not been in touch with for a little too long? Too many business leaders fixate on new (cold) leads and underestimate the speed and potential of expanding their existing client base

Review proposals and sales materials. A simple task is to use AI to work out shortcuts in your proposal and presentation process. But there’s more value still in thinking through how you can achieve bigger impact with those people you really want to be speaking with. Presentations are often decks that have evolved over time. What if you used this time to rebuild one or two key presentation and proposal decks to help impact conversion rates later in the year?

If all else fails and it really is tough to get decisions from clients then chat with them about their holidays. If their heads really are on the beach or waiting for exam results then maybe the best thing is to ask them what summer plans they have before proposing to meet in September. It might not help with the pace of your pipeline but it’s better to have a friendly check-in than to hear nothing for 3 months.

Summer is a great time to recharge your batteries and if you think doing that will make you stronger then we’re all in favour of a good work-life balance. But don’t allow yourself to slip into a flat summer’s activity if it’s not what you want.

Yes, the beach and the world cup are temptations, but those who build a resilient sales pipeline over the next couple of months are those who will reap the benefit of a sales boost in September. If you’d like to chat about your business or have a question about how we can help you we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in Sales Training, Growth sales and tagged sales, Sales Plan, sales process