January is always a reasonably quiet period. Plenty of people are still on holiday, the kids aren’t back at school yet and it’s still nice and summery (at least some of the time).
But the relaxed vibe shouldn’t prevent you from getting a jump on the year in terms of sales. In fact, you can use this quiet period to your advantage by booking in some New Year sales calls.
But this isn’t the time for the hard sell. Call up some of your key customers and take them out to lunch with the promise of a friendly chat about the year ahead.
When you sit down to break bread, do some sharing. Tell your customer what your plans are for 2012, what you will be focusing on, where you’re hoping to take your business.
Then invite them to do the same. With any luck, you’ll find more than a couple of moments where you can say “we can help you with that”.
You might not make an instant sale, but you’ll have a great idea of what the customer will need through the course of the year and you can plan your sales efforts accordingly.
Get it done – today!
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
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