“Right now, at the start of the new year, is a great time to be selling. Organizations of all types, public and private, have new plans and new budgets to go along with them.”
Right now, at the start of the new year, is a great time to be selling. Organizations of all types, public and private, have new plans and new budgets to go along with them. More decisions on service providers will be made now more than any other time during the year. So what are you waiting for?
Here are my thoughts:
- Outbound email still works. Inbound marketing may be the rage, but it’s no panacea. If you have an email marketing program, now is the time to make maximum use of it. Kick up the volume!
- Clean up your proposals pending list. Call everyone who you have sent a proposal to but haven’t heard back from. Besides it being a good idea to have good data on what is still a possibility, you may be surprised to win a job or two. Strike now while the iron is hot and show some interest!
- Call all of your current clients. Make it part of your “business planning process” to get with all of your current clients to go over their needs for the coming year. This is a perfect time to ask.
- Call all of your targeted new clients. Make a list of who you really want to do business with. Identify all of those in these organizations who could hire you or influence the decision to hire you. Start discussing their coming needs, concerns or dislikes with current service providers, and share some success stories on projects done recently for other clients. You will never get these clients unless you start contacting them regularly!
- Set up a regular time for you to make your calls. Maybe it is every Thursday afternoon from 1 to 5, or some other time. Put it in your calendar. Stay on the phone with new clients during that time. See what comes of it.
- Train your people. It’s a rare firm in this business that does a decent job training a wide range of staff in business development and selling. Be one of those companies. Train a large cross-section of staff and get everyone in the place concerned with selling.
- Celebrate your victories! Announce new work sold. Bang a gong. Send out an email to all staff. Post names on a board. Make a big deal out of those who are out there and bringing the bacon home. And don’t forget that most of these projects take more than one person to land so give credit to ALL who deserve it!
Not every time is a good time to be out selling. Right now, however, is. Get it while the “gettin’” is good!
Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com.
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