It’s Always Spring in Sales

Introduction

This past week we lost the legendary Jim Rohn. Rohn was a great motivational speaker. I remember listening to How to Have Your Best Year Ever where Rohn insisted that one of the primary ideas behind success was to plant in Spring so you could harvest in the Fall. I’m paraphrasing, but I believe it was: “You have to learn to plant in the Spring or learn to beg in the Fall.” His point was simple and one of my favorite themes: you can’t cram for success.

The 6-Month Quarter

How you will perform in Q1 is already mostly decided. Most of the deal you will land have already been set in motion, Is there a chance that you can make the Q1 – 2010 numbers by starting on January 1st, 2010? Sure there is. By why tempt fate?

Instead of working from quarter to quarter to make your quota, it is easier to think in terms of the 6-Month Quarter. Think of Q1-2010 starting on October 1st, 2009 and running through March 31, 2010. The planting needs to be done between October 1st and December 31st. The harvesting (or begging, if you didn’t plant) is done between January 1st and March 31st.

“But wait,” you say, “if I am harvesting all of the prospects I developed in the first quarter, what about the second quarter?” Q2-2010 starts on January 1st!

In Sales, It’s Always Spring

It doesn’t matter what your sales cycle is; it might be 6 months, it might be two years. Whatever it is, the period will reset at some point and a measurement will be taken. How you do from one measuring point to the next is the result of what you do long before the clock starts ticking.

You can’t cram success, and you can’t cram relationships. The trust and understanding that allows a client to choose you and your company to create value for them doesn’t happen in the last week of your period, and it doesn’t happen because you need to make your sales quota. These relationships need be nurtured over time. Seeds need to be planted. To grow, they need to be monitored and care for until they mature.

Fortunately, for those of us in sales, it is always Spring.

Three Questions and One Project

1. Based on you sales cycle and the average time it takes you to move a deal from prospect to close, when does your quarter really start?
2. How much time each quarter do you set aside for laying the foundation for future results? (You might call this something like prospecting. I prefer to call it opening relationships).
3. Do you have enough live deals in your pipeline now to ensure that you make your Q1-2010 numbers, even if things go worse than you expect?

Project: Rewrite your calendar.

Maybe you don’t need a 6-month quarter. Maybe you want your Q1 to start on December 1, 2009 and run through February 28^th, knowing that your sales cycle doesn’t permit you to win deals in four weeks. Whatever works for you, write it down.

Make a calendar that outlines when you need to be planting if you wish to harvest on a certain date. You are always going to be opening relationships, but it helps to know how many you need to open now if you expect to close a portion of them at some point in the future.

I know it’s December, but I hope your March went well.

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Related posts:

1. March Madness, I’m Getting Ready
2. March Was Alright!
3. 5 Ways to Leverage History to Sell More
4. Why Your March Sales Suck
5. March-maddening people strategery and other habits I learned while trying to use Salesforce.com