“Business is always slower in the summer,” is the common phrase among sales professionals and business owners from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Unless you are in the tourism business, chances are your summer months are a little slower in the way of sales. This can also be a drastic rationalization technique by professionals when they have a slumpy summer. It can also be a justification to take the foot off the accelerator and spend more time at the beach then the bullpen.
Here are a few ideas to help keep production hot in the summer months:
Change Up Selling Hours
We are creatures of habit, but when we tend to slump at certain times, the best thing we can do is switch up our environment. Instead of working 8am to 5pm prepping and seeing clients, get in at 6:30am and get home to hang out at the pool around at 4:00. Work a four day week and use Friday morning for leisurely prospecting on the golf course or boats. Switch up your days but be sure to be present and focused in the hours that you are actively working.
Hire Interns
College students know the importance of gaining a summer internship. Look to hire an intern that can specialize in business development. Give the intern ownership over building a social marketing campaign, pounding the pavement making phone calls and working to plan small events throughout the summer. Check with your state on compensation rules regarding interns. They can be a high ROI team member and bonuses them on business they can draw up. They don’t need to be experts in your field to bring value. They just need to know how to help spread the word to people that you could bring value to. Make sure you are teaching the interns about your business and field though, along with proper compensation to help their professional development.
Kobe Steaks or Hot Dogs Contest
If you lead a group of professionals then start looking at creative contests with high “steaks” to keep them engaged. Look at how last year’s production was affected by slow summer months to help gage some cash bonuses. Have a pride contest where you break your sales force into two teams to compete during the summer months- losing team needs to cook Kobe steaks for the winning team while they chow down on two for a dollar hot dogs. Lastly, move your “recognition” year from January to December to July to June. This allows for two “end of the year” pushes for your sales team. One in December for calendar year production and one in the middle of the summer for a “recognition year.”
Author Bio
Eddy Ricci, Jr., is the Author of The Growth Game: A Millennial’s Guide to Professional Development and Founder of The Growth Game, LLC a professional development company. He has been labeled as “the emerging expert in developing Gen Y sales professionals” by the chairman of Publicis Kaplan Thaler and is also noted as “understanding what motivates Gen Y sales teams. He is on my radar and should be on yours” by international speaker and NY Times bestselling author, Erik Qualman. Eddy serves as the director of a unique training and development collaborative platform that services financial planning firms in the northeast where he has arguably worked with more Gen Y financial professionals than anyone in the country over the past four years.www.thegrowthgame.com ; @thegrowthgame (recently created twitter).
“After You Frame Your Diploma, You Must Read Ricci’s The Growth Game!”- Ben Newman, international speaker, Professional Sports and Executive speaker, and best selling author
