5 STRATEGIES TO KEEP SALES MOMENTUM GOING

Slow times…when are the slow times of the year?

Top salespeople are top salespeople because they refuse to believe that any time of the year is slow.

The reality is that from May through mid – September, PEO sales teams must make two to three times the number of contacts to appoint the same number of prospects they are accustomed to seeing in Q4 and Q1. Without proper planning and execution sales momentum and—more importantly—results, can slow down.

Make no mistake, what you are doing right now, every day, will impact your sales results in Q3, as well as Q4 and Q1.

The following strategies can keep the sales momentum throughout the year and generate consistent sales results regardless of the time of the year.

1. GET INVOLVED!

Your community needs you! Not as a salesperson, but as a person who wants to better their community. Get involved where business owners are involved. Chambers of Commerce and other business associations are great when you get involved, and that means “selflessly serving.”

Every association needs volunteers to serve on committees and boards. In 2010, I joined the Chamber of Commerce in Arlington, Texas. The following year, the CEO of the Chamber needed someone to be the Chairman and help run the Chamber Golf Tournament. Count me in! Over the years, serving on committees led to being on the Chamber Board, the Executive Committee, to serving in the Arlington community and great client relationships. Genuine involvement to betterment an organization will lead to more business.

2. CONDUCT CLIENT CARE MEETINGS

Wouldn’t you want to know if your client relationship is at risk? You better. You should be meeting with every client at least quarterly. The purpose of the client care meeting is to gauge client satisfaction and ask for referrals and letters of recommendation.

Great salespeople under promise and stay engaged with their clients. Great salespeople take accountability when things go wrong and keep the client posted through resolutions. That doesn’t mean salespeople should be account managers, it means they are relationships managers.

Every client should lead to more clients. You just have to stay engaged and ask clients for their help. Adopt the following strategy as soon as you gain a new client relationship, it will set the tone that you are going to ask and quite frankly expect their referrals: “Our goal is to meet and exceed your expectations so you will always be confident that we will take care of the businesses that you refer to us.”

Every client likely belongs to an industry group or an association like NAPEO. NAPEO and other like associations have a mission to advance the interests of their members. Every client has businesses that they depend on like vendors and suppliers, they have clients that need your PEO and they have advisors. Like CPAs.

3. REQUEST REFERRALS TO YOUR CLIENT’S CPA AND WEALTH MANAGER.

CPAs, wealth managers and other advisors are gold. When advisors understand the value your PEO is bringing to your mutual client, they are incredible sources of referrals. May through September is the time to get in front of clients to gain a meeting with their CPA.

Five important points for meetings with advisors:

• One: Request an introductory meeting, with you, your client, and their advisor; get everyone together.
• Two: Let the client do the talking, they will say good things about what your PEO is doing for them.
• Three: Adopt an advisor mindset. Remember your PEO is advising your client on matters of HR, compliance, risk, benefits, and payroll. You have gained a seat in an advisor meeting – so act like it! This is not a sales call, this is a peer to peer advisor meeting!
• Four: State the facts of how your PEO helps clients.
• Five: Casually offer to take the advisor through your proposal process so they can see the professionalism of your advisor/discovery process.

4. PROVIDE INCENTIVES FOR REFERRALS

Chances are your PEO already has some sort of client referral incentive program. If not, start one now! Whether it is a revenue share, an invoice credit, sports tickets, gift cards, thank you dinners, bringing lunch to the entire company, all expressions of gratitude go a long way to bring more client opportunities.

It is important to note that revenue shares or monetary incentives for a CPA firm may be a potential conflict of interest. Taking them to sporting events, making contributions to charities they may be involved in are unlikely to be seen as a conflict of interest. On the other side, wealth managers may accept a revenue share or a financial incentive. In 2009, I met a wealth manager through a mutual association. That wealth manager has referred me to a number of clients and he receives a revenue share that has grown to over $36,000 a year.

5. SEMINARS

Seminars are a great way to provide education to your clients and keep your PEO as top of mind as a value-added resource. When you invite prospective clients to educational seminar it demonstrates the value you bring to clients.

Four Key Strategies for Successful Seminars:

• One: Give clients different colored name tags than prospects so you can easily identify who is who.
• Two: Conduct three seminars in the same day. You will get more attendance when you offer three options: breakfast, lunch and happy hour.
• Three: Select a distinguished location like a country club, social club, or great restaurant.
• Four: Present great content that makes people want to attend. Every client needs help improving culture, hiring, performance management, essentials of management, counseling techniques and avoiding the pitfalls firing.

All these strategies work! With proper planning, you can keep the sales momentum through the “perceived” slow times. The key is to be consistent, and you will keep the sales momentum going with a healthy pipeline of qualified opportunities. Wishing you the best of success!