What Summer Slowdown?

It’s late July or maybe early August. Your air conditioner is on full blast causing the electric bill to be higher than your car payment. The phone is dead. No one is calling you. You’ve gotten way down to the bottom of your task list. It’s quiet and you’re bored.

The summer slowdown is on.

Summer slowdowns are a tradition in the printing industry. Or signage. Our promotional. It occurs because clients are on vacation at different times and the bare minimum of work is being done anyway. So, you sit and complain. You tell your boss and yourself it’s not your fault. You did not cause this. It just happens like it does every year. Like I said, it’s a tradition.

Lies.

Multiple lies can be found in those last few sentences. Lies we tell our boss. Lies we tell ourselves. The summer slowdown is self-created every bit as much as those crazy-busy stretches where the phone rings off the hook. It’s not an accident. Whether it’s crazy-busy or dead quiet. Both come from sales activity or lack thereof.

This sales tip is being released on the last Monday of April. You’ve got one last chance to create some sales momentum and fill your pipeline enough to carry you through the dog days of summer.

I am a big fan of goal-setting. I especially like short-term goals. What kind of commitment can you make to yourself for the month of May? How about daily sales activity goals? Something that simple is literally all it takes to generate some results in July and August.

This is your last opportunity. What you do or don’t do in the coming weeks will determine or eliminate the existence of a summer slowdown.

If you choose to do nothing, don’t sit around and blame vacationing customers. You created this reality. Own it. Learn from it. Have an understanding that sales volume — and especially long streaks of big numbers — starts with consistent sales activity. It’s really simple math: If you do X and you do it consistently, Y will happen.

Oh, and next year? Take this advice earlier!

This week inside The Sales Vault: 4/26: Motivation; 4/28: I Hate Selling: Making calls when you REALLY don’t want to. Sign up at SalesVault.pro or by calling 781-934-7036. $45/month.