Have you ever had a sale that closed really quick?

One that resulted in a core, loyal, customer that will gladly act as a reference and give you referrals.

How did you make that happen? I will argue that you had two things working for you timing and a relationship.

When you have the right timing the sale almost happens by itself – There are few challenges getting to the decision maker, understanding their dissatisfaction, presenting a solution, or closing the sale.

When you have the right timing you get the best customers – Highly appreciative, loyal, customers who represent 80% of your profits, be less than 20% of your headaches, and are most likely to provide you with the most treasured thing in sales, timely referrals.

But timing alone didn’t win you the sale. You won that sale because you already had a relationship with the decision maker when they developed a need for what you sell. This relationship probably resulted in first mover advantage – You got to the decision maker shortly after after their buying process started but long before your competitors selling process began.

Those who expect to close out March with a strong first quarter strong know it’s not the decision makers they are talking to today that will make the difference.

It’s those who they don’t have a relationship with yet but are highly likely to experience a Trigger Event in the next 30-60 days and now have an urgent need for what you sell.

Don’t wait until they experience the Trigger Event and want what you sell. By doing so you start out in the red zone of the Credibility Curve below and you are unlikely to win the sale.

Spend a little time figuring out:

• Who do you want to be selling to in March?
• Which  Trigger Event will cause them to want the products or services that you sell?

Then start building a relationship today with those most likely to the have a need for your product or service in the next month or two. Move into the green zone by treating them today as you treat your best customers  and soon so they will become one.

So avoid the “I need to make my number” madness at the end of March and start building relationships today with decision makers who are most likely to have a need for your prodcuts/services in the next 30 – 45 days.

Popularity: unranked [?]

As a fan of Asterix the comic* book as a child, I grew up with much of my fascination with ancient history coming from exploring some of the wonderful comic adaptations of historical events and characters. It was particularly so with a specific Asterix comic adventure where the indomitable Gauls were up against the fearmongering of one of the most influential characters of ancient times; the soothsayer. In real life the soothsayer back then, and even today in some quarters, was someone who could predict the future by reading signs in various different media. Thousands of years ago it could have been the entrails of a sacrificial animal or analysing the flight patterns of a flock of birds. Soothsayers were employed by the mighty and powerful to read the signs, predict the future and to advise accordingly.

“What does the next three months hold for me, O Soothsayer”, the mighty ruler would say and the soothsayer would read his signs, that only he as a learned soothsayer can read. “O mighty ruler, the signs are good. You will be victorious in battle and will sack your enemies city’s and earn riches for your kingdom”.

The problem, of course, is when three months later those things don’t happen. The same soothsayer is hauled up in front of the mighty ruler to explain just why those predictions didn’t happen and why in fact the mighty ruler had been roundly annihalated in a series of battles and contrary to sacking city’s, his own had been plundered and the treasury depleted. “O mighty ruler, recent readings of the tea leaves suggest those victories you were looking for have slipped back a few months etc. etc.”

Sound familiar?

When it comes to predicting next March’s sales forecast, some – not all – seem to look to the soothsayer gods of sales for the divine insight into knowing how healthy their pipeline is. It is strange that in a modern society, confident in the scientfic knowledge that we possess, that mentioning the word ‘sales forecast’ can at times conjure a mysticism totally unplaced in the 21st century.

Yet, predicting with some degree of accuracy how well your March sales are going to be isn’t very difficult at all. Ironically, this actually involves history – though a much more immediate history. Yes, it is quite possible to measure sales data over the past months and years in sufficient terms to analyse trends and patterns so that you are reasonably certain about where you stand today in respect of what happens in March. If for instance the trend of your pipeline over the past few years is that you make between 50-70% of a three month projection then you can reasonably predict how healthy your sales pipeline is now. If you have forecasted $100,000 in march and your target is $95,000 then you can reasonably suspect that you have an issue, without having to fall back to explaining why and how you are going to make 95% of the forecast. Similarly, opportunities in the pipeline that are slipped from one forecast to the next can also be analysed as well as the harder issues of sandbagging where sales people hold the proverbial card up the sleeve.

Adding up this history so that you have a realistic picture of the sales forecast means that you get past the sparring that inevitably happens in sales meetings between sales managers and sales people who need to justify their forecast and explain their past performance. What does it require? Simple….. honesty. Not only from the sales person but from the sales manager. Innaccuracy in forecasting, I think, is primarily down to the way that forecasts are used by both. If the forecast is used as a tool to improve as opposed to a measure of performance then issues can be worked on and data can be collected in a more accurate way with less of the sparring, sandbagging, slippage etc. Inaccuracy in the forecast then can be used to identify issues that both manager and sales person can work on ie. if opportunities are slipped constantly is there an over-optimism in the sales persons expectaction? What is leading the sales person to make the forecast date for that particular time? Is there something the manager and sales person can do to rectify this and improve this?

How are your March sales? I would like to think that this is relatively easy to predict but I am constantly surprised at how many organisations and people leave it down to pure gut feel. I say consign the soothsayer of sales to where he belongs – in ancient history.

*For those who haven’t read Asterix, the comic book is about a village of Gauls in France holding out against the might Roman Empire of Julius Caesar with the aid of a magic potion that makes them invincible.

Popularity: unranked [?]

We’re all familiar with the old proverb, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”  What we usually overlook, though, is the first part of that verse: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked.”  No, this isn’t a theology lesson; it’s a universal law.  Plant orange seeds, you get oranges. Plant apple seeds, you get apples.  You never, never ever, plant almonds and get walnuts, right?  Also, we understand that each kind of seed has it’s own unique gestation period, a different amount of time between planting and harvesting.

The same is true in sales.  You’ve been reading articles all month on this blog about the importance of planting seeds now (prospecting) so that you can reap come springtime (close deals).  I’m not going to beat you up on that point any more; if you didn’t get it yet, you probably don’t belong in sales.  What I am going to do is ask you to think for just a minute about what it takes to keep yourself going during those long winter months when you’ve planted your seeds but nothing’s happened yet.

Let’s start by acknowledging that sales is one of the most frustrating career paths anyone could choose.  I know, I know, it’s also one of the most rewarding…but let’s save that conversation for another post and focus on the frustrations for a bit.  We all know the pain of going through an entire sales process only to have the prospect we’ve been courting decide not to make a change, or worse, go with a competitor.  It sucks.  All that planting of seeds and cultivating of the tree, only to find out it was all a fruitless effort.  A lot of frustration, right?  And therein lies the problem.

The Buddha said that our suffering (in this case our frustration) is caused by our resistance to what is (in this case, the fact that sometimes, in spite of our best efforts, we lose the deal we worked so hard to plant and cultivate), and he was right!  We get so tied up in the way we want things to be that we get completely sidetracked when things don’t turn out that way.  We suffer.

And what happens when we get sidetracked and frustrated, when we’re suffering?  We make the irrational decision to stop planting seeds.  In other words, we have a tendency to get out of our good sales habits when we lose a deal.  Unconsciously, we blame the process for letting us down, when in reality it’s just the nature of the game we play.

So what’s a sales rep to do?  How can you keep yourself going when you feel like dumping all your seeds in the trash can?  Here’s a little trick I learned a few years ago that’s served me very well: commit to the process, detach yourself emotionally from any specific result, and the rest will take care of itself.

Countless sales experts and studies have told us what you and I know to be true from experience: the sales process works.  No matter what you call the specific steps in your industry or organization, we all know that good prospecting efforts lead to qualifying conversations, which in turn lead to need-specific presentations, which lead to converted sales (aka the Close).

We also know that the numbers get smaller as you move through the process.  If I start by making 125 prospecting calls to land 25 appointments which lead to 5 presentations which convert to 1 new deal, I know I have a sales process and I know my numbers.  What I don’t know, and what nobody knows at the beginning, is which of those 125 prospecting calls will lead to the 1 new deal.  In other words, I can’t shortcut.  I have to make all 125 calls, go on all 25 appointments, create and deliver all 5 proposals, all without any idea which one will finally become a new customer.  And that’s perfectly OK, because I know the process works.

So here’s the $1,000,000 question: do you know your numbers?  Do you know how many calls you have to make to get 1 new deal?  Do you know how long your sales cycle is (in other words, how much time will elapse between making the calls and getting the deal)?  If not, you’ve got a serious sales problem that you need to fix now.

Start by tracking everything you do.  And by “tracking”, I mean writing it down or recording it somewhere (a CRM program, a day planner, a notepad and crayons…whatever works for you).  Then, and here’s the really important part, go back and review your data so you can start to build an accurate picture of what your sales process and sales cycle look like.

Then, and only then, can you commit to the process, detach from the outcome, and still trust implicitly that the activities you perform today will lead to your results in March.  You’ll see that universal law in action: what you so today, you’ll assuredly reap in the future!

Popularity: unranked [?]

Professional Service Firms are probably the least likely of all businesses to know what their results next March are going to look like. Most professional service pipelines look rather more like a cliff edge than they do a smooth flow.

Part of the reasons for this are inherent in the nature of professional service businesses. There’s a huge variety in the type of engagements professional firms sell – from short assessments to huge multi-year projects. And many engagements have very long sales cycles – sometimes lasting many years.

But many of the problems are also self-inflicted.

Particularly painful is the boom-bust cycle driven by the fact that in professional firms, the business-winners are almost always responsible for delivering the work too.  The pattern seen time and time again is that once the professional sells a piece of work, they bury themselves in delivering it and neglect business development. When the work ends, they haven’t built up a pipeline of new work – so they go through a painful dry period when they run around trying to drum up new business. Eventually they sell something and the cycle repeats.

The pattern is well known, and the solution rather obvious: professionals must keep working on business development while they’re engaged on projects. Sadly though, very few professionals do this.

Why is it that so few professionals carve out adequate time for business development when they’re actively engaged on client work?

Part of the problem is that most professionals much prefer client work to business development. They studied and trained to do client work. They’re good at it. And it’s often quite technical and rational in nature – much more suited to most professionals’ personalities than the confusing, fuzzy world of relationships found in business development.

So professionals will often find any excuse to avoid doing business development. And being busy with client work is the best excuse going.

Many professionals also don’t understand the “economics” of business development. They have no real concept of the amount of effort they need to invest today in activities like networking, or in contacting new clients in order to get a payback 3, 6 or 12 months downstream. As a result, they don’t feel a real sense of urgency about doing business development activities.

Professionals are also rarely good at planning and organising themselves when it comes to business development. Marketing and selling often isn’t viewed as a “proper” activity to be managed like other functions or projects. So they may set themselves a goal like “do more speaking engagements” – but will rarely make a concrete plan to do so. As a result, when they get a few hours spare one afternoon, instead of knowing that the next task in their plan is to search for potential events to speak at, or to contact the organisers of these events; they have to think from scratch. And by the time they’ve figured out the things they need to do, their time window has passed.

One critical problem many professional firms have which cripples their ability to invest in business development is the performance measurement and reward system they have in place.

Many professional firms still measure and reward senior staff primarily on their own billable hours. It sounds ludicrous, and it flies in the logic of leverage, the core dynamic behind the profitability of professional firms. But it’s still the case in many professional firms today.

Wise firms take a more enlightened view to billing targets. As professionals gain in experience and seniority, their billability targets decrease, and their targets for various forms of practice development (chief among them being business development) increase. And, of course, their career and competency development models place increasing emphasis on client relationship and business development skills. Client acquisition and sales targets take primacy over individual billing targets.

What can professional firms do to address these challenges?

Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to get professionals to “fall in love” with business development activities. They will almost always prefer the technical work of their profession. But it is possible to make business development less painful for them – and to make it clear just how important it is.

The first step is to make sure professionals understand the economics or mathematics of selling – the lead times on typical sales activities, and the success rates. Translating future end goals (either revenues or billable hours) into the business development activity levels needed today will help make sure they don’t underestimate the importance of engaging in those activities.

Secondly, prioritising the key marketing and sales activities that will deliver the desired end results, then developing detailed actions plans for them must be a mandatory activity for all senior professionals. Planning needs to be drilled down not just at the practice level, but for all key individuals. And then the plan must actually be implemented: moth by month, week by week, day by day.

Finally, firms must ensure that their competency models, their promotion criteria, and their performance targets integrate the business development skills, activities and targets needed to achieve the firm’s growth goals.

Put together, these three simple actions can make a real difference in making next March’s targets rather more achievable and predictable for professional firms.

Popularity: unranked [?]

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.

Popularity: unranked [?]

NCAA Basketball has a tremendous impact on my schedule starting now.  I’m looking at the schedule, kind of planning my time backward.  According to the NCAA Basketball site, final selection is on March 14, Opening Round Game is March 16, Fourth Round Completes on March 28 and the final four on April 3rd and 5th.

I’m getting my schedule ready in anticipation.  I think of the teams–all aiming to be part of March Madness.  Actually, they started months ago in their training.  Their seasons are just starting, each building a record of wins–hoping to develop a track record that enables them to qualify and compete in March Madness, each hoping to be in the final four.  Each team has to focus both on today–practicing, competing, and winning.  Each team has their eye on March, they know what they do today lays the groundwork for March. They are looking at their January and February schedules, preparing and strategizing for the teams they will compete against, knowing those performances impact that great event in March!

Oh wait—this is supposed to be an article about sales, sorry I got diverted.  Let me get back on target and talk about sales.  But isn’t what the NCAA basketball teams are going through similar to what we as sales people are going through?  Don’t we have to balance both our short term goals—winning every deal that we are competing for today, but laying the ground work for the deals we know we need to win in January, February, March, ……

Our success today impacts our ability to be successful in the coming months.  We need to focus on closing business today, our companies need it, our managers are looking for a great year end.  However, we need to keep an eye on the future.  Are we doing the right things today that enable us to compete and win in March?  For us in sales, this means looking at our prospecting, account development, territory development, and qualifying.  Are we identifying the opportunities today that enable us to be in the game in  March? 

Teams that do great in December, but fall apart later in the season don’t get to the final four.  Like those teams, doing great this month, having a strong end to the calendar year, doesn’t mean we will continue to do well.  If we aren’t identifying and developing the opportunities that will close in January, February, and March, we won’t be in the game.

The only difference between sales and NCAA Basketball, is that for us, after March Madness, comes April Angst, May Mayhem, June Jamming…..  While closing deals today, we have to lay the groundwork for the future.  Do you have a strategy that will get you to “March Madness?”  Make sure you don’t have just a great December and fall apart for the rest of the season.

Popularity: 1% [?]

When I first heard my North American sales friends speak of how your March sales were determined by what you did in December, my first thought was how lucky some people have it if they only have to think of sales 3 months in advance.  And I realized that as an international sales person used to opening new foreign markets I was comparing apples to oranges.

But to be honest, North American sales and marketing professionals often amaze me by the level of sophistication of the methods they use. And this sophistication reminds me of the 5 levels of market awareness and sophistication I read in Eugene Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising.

Now, I realize the comparison is not a good fit once again, but I see quite a few sales people who get so caught up in their advanced practices that they forget the very basic ones on which they were founded. And thinking back to Eugene Schwartz, I keep wondering if the sophistication will get to a point where falling back to basics once again will be the fastest way to make sales.

This is why I want to share with you one particular international sales basic. [...]

Popularity: 2% [?]

March

I know the Sales Bloggers Union topic this month is “How Were Your March 2010 Sales.” Since this is December of 2009, the gist of the topic is that March 2010 sales are already being decided by salespeople’s actions this month (at least for those with a 3 month or so sales cycle).

But I want to take a look at your sales last March (March 2009). What can you gain by looking at your sales from last March? That was six months ago! How can it help your sales this month? Or next March?

Selling is a profession of immediacy. Commission salespeople get paid for what they sell today. The presence of weekly, monthly, and yearly sales goals stresses the need for immediacy. Given all the attention on the “What have you sold for me lately” mentality of sales executives and managers (I don’t disagree with it, I just think it gets out of hand in some organizations to the point that it is no longer healthy for the long term health of the business), it’s not common for salespeople to look backward to analyze performance of a previous month, especially when it is six months prior.

Here are five questions that will help you analyze your March sales from earlier this year, and then use that information to maximize your sales now.

1. Who did you meet with that is still a viable prospect, but who you allowed to drop off your radar screen?

Low-hanging fruit is tasty and accessible, and any salesperson would be a fool for passing it by for more high-maintenance fruit. But once all the low-hanging fruit has been consumed, a salesperson is confronted with either waiting for more low-hanging fruit to appear (thereby ceding control of his career to external forces), or going after fruit that requires more advanced  effort.

Follow up is a weakness of many sales professionals. They may have started with good intentions, but six months later, they’ve forgotten all about the follow-up and are pulling their hair out looking for new sales to meet the monthly target. What’s wrong with that picture?

The nice thing about letting customers drop off your radar screen is that you can quickly recalibrate and pick them up again. Radar is like that.

2. Who did you sell to, and why did they buy?

Salespeople are often just so darned happy to have a sale that they are energized to move on to the next prospect, hoping the magic will continue. But when we do this, we are overlooking the opportunity to identify the real reason each of our customers bought from us.

Were you in the right place at the right time? Was your pricing better than your competition’s? Did they like you or your company better? Did you do a better job of selling? What needs were met by you, your company, and your product or service that your competitor didn’t or couldn’t meet?

Completing an analysis to identify why your customer purchased can provide you with information that will help you over and over again.

3. What did you do to engineer a positive outcome?

Sometimes salespeople amaze themselves with the sales results they’re able to get. But a little constructive analysis can bring subconscious behaviors in to the realm of conscious thought. Conscious thought allows us to examine our behaviors, question them, and connect dots that may have been out of our consciousness previously.

If you can quantify your behaviors, you can repeat them. If you leave behaviors up to chance, they can’t be quantified. Find out what you’re doing that works so you can make it work better for you now and in the future.

4. What can you sell now to those customers that already bought last March?

Over and over again, I’ve seen sales professionals call upon their book of past clients to raise them from a quota deficit or worse. We need to cultivate sales from the fertile fields of our selling past to squeeze the most from our limited resources.

There just may be one or two or fifty customers you served last March who would buy from you again, if you’d only ask.

5. Have you extracted referrals from your March customers?

Have you asked? Did you contact them? Did you make it easy for your March customers to refer their contacts to you?

Maybe you intended to but never got around to it. Now’s a great time to get around to it.

- – - – -

Here’s to March of 2009, and to all the Marches of the future, too.

Popularity: 2% [?]

ummm…. so March sales?

Please stop telling me about your stupid pipeline.  I know you have all the answers teed up for me.  I don’t give a @#$%…

I’m not your mom or you sales manager so stop pitching me on how amazing your three month selling cycle is.  Frankly I don’t care.

I am sure your pipeline is magical.

By the way, can I go back to that word “pipeline”?  Of all the major “P” words that play into a selling discussion:

…..Presentation

……….Pitch

……………Practice

………………..Process

…………………….”Pain” points

…………………………Professionalism

……………………………..Poise

There is a word that I don’t often hear — people.

In case you are not quite sure what I am getting at, take a look at your rolodex.  It’s all those dudes…

Sadly, your sales force automation platform screaming at you in your local web browser doesn’t give a crap either.  Sure there are a nice couple of fields there to put in first and last names and possibly a birth date.  (oooh…. maybe you can even put in a Twitter name)/

<whatever…..>

But your platform (which by the way, I understand your sales manager is stalkerishly addicted to) isn’t the road map to predictably building a kick-ass solution in March right now pre-Christmas.

It’s people…  You. Them. Us.

People relate.  People object.  People buy.

It’s people that we need to focus on.

The mathematics of making sure you maximize your time and attention are givens.  I am guessing that if you have read this far that you have mastered the art of engineering your schedule to predict your sales in March.

If that’s not you, go read some of the content that the other blokes on this blog write about (some of these dudes are pretty witty).

Know the formula of prospects to leads to contacts to buyers to repeat customers…

Know it and then improve it.  That’s your homework to do.

What I want to inspire you about is your focus on the person.

…..The other side of the sales contract.

……….The line item in your CRM with a price tag attached.

……………The entity “cutting the check” to you when you close the deal.

The person you are trying to seduce with your sweet sales love story.

Those persons generally:

1. Want to be appreciated
2. Enjoy funny, witty messaging
3. Hate to feel abused
4. Want to help others
5. Hurt
6. Think about what’s in it for them
7. Will invest in you if you ask them to
8. Want to believe in something bigger than themselves
9. Fear change
10. Worry about paying the bills
11. Want to feel like they make a difference
12. Need money to survive
13. Live pretty stressed out
14. Tend to tell you the truth if you ask the right questions
15. Lie to protect their own best interests
16. Believe in karma
17. Like being appreciated
18. Know when you really care
19. Decide if they like you pretty fast
20. Will give you second chances if you ask

And a bunch of other drama that you learned in Sunday School.

Fall in love with people — the people spending money with you preferably — and watch as you close deals faster than ever.

Forget about  your sales numbers in March.  Hit your quota by February and take the whole damn month of March off…

Popularity: 6% [?]

Journal entry: December 3, 2009
“My calendar is full and my sales are on track. Looks like I’ll end the year ahead of target. This means my boss will finally stop bugging me to get my sales on track. After several years of developing my client base, I’m making headway. That means I can finally relax and start taking it a bit easier. I can’t coast but the momentum should carry me well into next year and by then I’ll have even more customers to which will make it easier to reach my quotas.”

Journal entry: March 21st, 2010
“Sales are below target and it doesn’t look like I’ll reach my quota this month. I was on track earlier this year but now it seems like I’ve lost my momentum. I thought the recession was over and that business was supposed to improve. Companies are still reluctant to move forward and the people I have sold too aren’t reordering. Guess I’ll have to step it up a notch to get back on track. It seems like this is a never-ending roller coaster ride.”

Sound familiar?

It’s a very common problem that far too many sales people encounter. They forget that the action they take—or fail to take—today, will affect their results several months down the road. They get caught up in the “moment” and fall into the trap of reducing their prospecting efforts when they are busy or when sales are on an upswing. They mistakenly believe that their sales will continue to improve even though they cut back on prospecting. Unfortunately, this creates the “peaks and valleys” syndrome whereby the sales person has a great month followed by one or two month of mediocre performance. As sales decline, the rep increases his/her efforts and a few months later their sales begin to improve again. As their sales start to climb, they scale back on hunting for new business. And they continue the pattern.

Unfortunately, every company and every person has to work at generating new business. Age, experience, seniority or expertise does not exempt you from this. I recall a conversation with a colleague who said, “I’ve been at this for 20 years; I feel a sense of entitlement and I don’t feel that I should have to work this hard to get new business.” We have all seen and heard about companies who went out of business after several decades of success. The business landscape constantly changes. New competitors enter the marketplace and erode our customer base. Products, services and solutions that were once state-of-the-art are now obsolete. And customers who were once loyal to you and your company abandon ship and no longer buy your product, service or solution.

This all means that you need to take consistent action to generate new business leads, regardless of how long you have been selling and how well established your business is. When my wife first started her business almost 15 years ago, her accountant suggested that she invest a specific amount of time each week marketing her business. It was wise advice then, and with the increase in competition that most businesses now experience, his words are even more valuable today.

This is even more important if you work with only a few customers and each company represents a large portion of your revenue. Many sales people and companies have found themselves scrambling to find new sources of revenue because a major client stopped using their services. It’s a tough wake-up call that can be prevented by avoiding the complacency trap and assertively prospecting for new business on a regular basis.

So, what do you need to do to ensure that your sales don’t suck in March?

It is essential that you block time in your schedule for prospecting. Otherwise one of two things will happen. First, the busyness of your day will take over and you won’t invest time on prospecting activities. Or, you will spend too much time in just one area and will neglect other opportunities to prospect. It’s easy to get caught up servicing your existing customers, dealing with emails, and other tasks. Whether you make cold calls, send direct mail campaigns, attend networking functions, ask for referrals, give presentations, or participate in social media; you need to determine exactly what type of prospecting activity you will do each day/week. Control and manage your time by blocking each activity in your calendar as an appointment. If you are diligent at keeping these prospecting appointments, your March sales won’t suck.

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