Reach the Goal!
According to an Ask Your Target Market survey, 59% of Americans take vacation sometime during July and August.
Certainly not everyone is away and those that are away are not gone for 2 months. Generally, those in the workforce take one or two weeks.
So why do so many people stop cold calling in the summer? This has a detrimental, long-term effect on sales quotas and year-end results.
Instead, use this time to your advantage to keep your plan on target and get a leg-up on the competition.
Stay committed
Just because people are on vacation doesn’t mean that you should be making only a half-hearted commitment to qualifying leads. In a given week, you’ll reach some people and not others, but you can keep the process moving ahead.
You may reach a prospect before they leave for vacation and the process may drag out because of it. When they return, you can pick right back up where you left off. If you need to, adjust your daily and weekly activity goals.
Don’t assume
Just because it is the summer, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone. You don’t know if your prospect is away. Engage your usual call campaign, leaving brief messages, following up with emails and calling again.
Use time to your advantage
Because you may have a little more time on your hands, summertime is a good time to reconnect with in-process leads. Review your accounts, check in with them and find out what is new with them, personally and in business. A little interest goes a long way in your relationship.
Call on leads you might have overlooked at other times of the year, opportunities that, for whatever reason, didn’t materialize. As your competitors take a break from cold calling, this is your opportunity to get in front of these folks and build rapport.
Keep your pipeline full
When you take a hiatus from qualified lead generation your pipeline dries up and you have a huge fall-off in closed sales in a month or months following. There’s a ripple effect in your work flow that can have a substantial negative impact on sales for the year.
Let’s say you stop cold calling July 1st and resume September 1st. What will you or your team be working on at the end of July, in August or in September or October? You’ve created a gap in qualified leads that could last months. You’ve lost the momentum of the campaign.
A cold calling campaign is a process of initial calls, emails and building rapport. Interfering with this process will set you back, possibly months.
The pace may lighten up during the summer, but sales activities need to continue. Stay committed and don’t let your business stagnate.
If you cannot stay committed to your inside sales effort, contact One of a Kind Solutions. We can help.
