Let’s face it, unless you sell Christmas trees or snowman chotchkies, December’s sales figures very often resemble a snowball: O
How to make December your biggest sales month
Does it feel like “Call me in January,” is the second most popular phrase you hear next to “Happy Holidays”?
As a Sandler Trained professional, one of the most life-changing lessons I learned from David Sandler was how to properly track sales success. Sales professionals are trained to calculate success based on the number of contracts signed, new accounts opened or money in the door. But when did you actually meet your clients and how did you build your relationship with them?
Track Prospecting Behaviors Not Sales Results
David Sandler teaches sales professionals and their managers to track behaviors not results. There’s nothing more defeating then returning back to the office after a long day of prospecting only to be asked “did you sell anything today?”
When you actually sign a new contract, open a new account, or collect revenue look back to see how you met that new client. Was it a referral and if yes, how many coffees, lunches or meetings did you have with the referral source? Did you meet your new client prospecting? If yes, how many phone calls, pop-ins, e-mails, meetings did it take to get you to the signed contract?
Look at every new client you have and create a trail of how you got to the sale. What you will find is that your “slow to no” sales periods are the times you were hitting the prospecting hard, meeting new people, helping colleagues get what they need and flexing your relationship building muscles.
The new contract, new account, or new revenue generated is the culmination of the all the relationship building you’ve done up to that point. Its the precursor to the signature on the dotted line. Its this “roll up your sleeves, shoulder to the grind stone” hard work that should be measured and tracked on a daily basis.
During the month of December there are company Christmas parties, Chamber holiday mixers and lots of occasions for extra mixing and mingling. Use this time to ramp up your prospecting and relationship building skills. Get out there and mingle and mix with people you already know and new people that you’d like to know.
At the end of every day, track your prospecting behaviors not your sales results. Track the number of new people that you meet and the number of new people you already know that you came in contact with. Send Christmas cards, holiday e-mails and drop off small gifts if its in your budget. Keep track of these activities.
In the new year when you make a sale, create a trail starting with exactly how and when you met your new client and list all of the different places and people involved along that relationship-building journey. You’ll find the month of December very often is one of the largest sales months of the year. Maybe its not your highest revenue collected or contracts signed month, unless you sell Christmas trees, but its very often the month with the most prospecting and relationship building activities, which lead to sales in the new year.
One last tip: Start your new sales year on December 1st and end it on November 30th. Its typically easier to rally fence-straddling prospects to sign year end contracts in November than it is in December. From a mental perspective, while the rest of the world is wrapping up their year, you’re kicking yours off! December is your runway to new sales. Every holiday shindig is your personal launch party as you meet new prospects and new referral sources.
Wishing you very happy holidays and the biggest sales month of the year! And, if after the end of a long day of networking at holiday parties and chug-a-lugging egg nog, someone asks you how many sales you made, smile and throw snowballs at them!