Seasonality

Hey, Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 3 minutes.

Life has seasons in the macro (your 20s are different from your 40s) and the micro (summer is different from winter).

Elite sellers use these seasons to pull deals forward and close them faster.

Story Time

A client has consistently hit their monthly targets for the last 4 months (the reporting was spotty before I joined), but last week, it was more than 60% of the way through the month, and they were only 20% to goal.

They asked:

"With only a few selling days left in the month, how do we focus our efforts to achieve the goal - are there any deals we should prioritize?"

My answer inspired today's newsletter,

Note: The below tactic only works if your buyers roughly want your product/service. It is not a demand creation tactic but a demand capture tactic that immediately reduces the sales cycle.

Deadlines

Every buying journey needs a deadline, or it will never happen.

But remember, the buying journey is over when the problem is solved, not when the contract is signed. So their deadline is when they want the outcome, not when they want to start working with you.

To pull deals forward relative to the buyer deadline, we have to give our buyers an excuse, the easiest of which is seasonality.

Seasonality

Business seasons differ by industry, geography, business, and the individual. It forms the bedrock of how we can pull deadlines forward. There are three key types of seasonality:

• Business Events
• Industry Seasonality
• Personal Timing

Business events

Every business has internal KPIs and dates that drive timing decisions. Some examples, the cut-offs for:

• Quarter and year-end reporting
• Bonus season
• Strategic initiatives
• Performance reviews

Industry Seasonality

Every business has high and low seasons. Some examples:

• Retail and e-commerce make their money in Q4, during the Christmas season, and are semi-quiet the rest of the year
• Gyms book 30%+ of new sign-ups in January and 10-20% in September
• B2B software is slowest in Q2 and highest at the end and beginning of the new year (calendar or fiscal)
• European businesses run skeleton crews from 1st June to 31st August due to the summer holidays
• For the USA, these skeleton crew dates are around the 4th of July and Thanksgiving
• For Australia, the shutdown is around mid-December to the end of January.

Personal timing

Finally, buyers will buy based on psychology and the timing of events in their lives; some examples:

• Major life events such as weddings or the birth of a child
• "End of" week, month, quarter, etc. People like decisions to be made within calendar time. It makes no logical sense, only emotional sense. But we sell emotions, not logic.
• Upcoming holidays. When either the seller or buyer plans to take at least 1 week off work, buyers often want to wrap up a deal.

Using Seasonality

I am sending this on Sunday, 25th May, which means there are:

• ~5 selling days left this month
• ~26 selling days (~5 weeks) left this calendar quarter, and
• ~155 days (~7 months) left this calendar year

Firstly, you need to know your approximate average sales cycle. Suppose it's significantly more than 5 days. In that case, nothing you add today will impact May's target.

If you're already at target, then happy days. Close what more you can, and keep refilling the pipeline to smash goals in future months.

If you're behind:

• Start with all the deals you have in the pipeline. Focus on those with a seasonal excuse.
• Then look at every conversation you have had in the last 3 months to find more seasonal excuses to re-engage
• For every conversation, pick up the phone and call. Aim for one dial per day per possible deal for this week. That shouldn't be more than 15-30 dials a day, and it will make a world of difference in hitting your target.
• You can always drop an email or any other written communication after you call.

Follow this guide, and it should help you close 1-5 more deals this week, month, and quarter. Happy hunting!

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