Whether June 30 is actually the end of the financial year for your organisation or not, these four different activities could be just what you need to drive that extra volume through the month of June (or any other time).
Christmas in July
The chances are that your Christmas gift gets lost amongst the many others that get sent at the end of the year. Pick now as the time you knock on the door of your ten most consistent clients and do four things:
- Given them a small gift
- Thank them for their ongoing support over the last financial year
- Let them know about your latest product or what their competition is up to
- Ask them for a referral
Just making personal contact can be enough to trigger a new order or referral to a new client.
Gamification
Sometimes organisations can be a victim of their own success. Have some of your sales team already hit their targets? Rumor has it that some sales people who have already hit target actually slow down as the financial year ends ( I know – it shocked me to). Opportunities are stockpiled ready for next year when they will turn the commission tap back on. However, organisationally bringing these sales forward makes a whole lot more sense.
Gamification relies on gaming concepts and mechanics to drive a target audience such as your sales team to change a behavior, learn a new skill or engage more frequently.
Set up a simple ‘June’ competition that leverages the ego and competitive nature commonly found in sales. Pick your metrics that drive the behaviour you are after and set up a leader board. Celebrate milestones along the way as publicly as you can. Daily / weekly winners can be celebrated as well as ‘most improved’. Often the rewards can be very low monetary items such as a meal or tickets to a game. The driver is the recognition and competitive juices.
Walk in Their Shoes
- Which of your clients are also ending their financial year?
- Do they have funds left in their budget that they will want to spend to ensure they get similar funding in future years?
- Can you help them reduce the tax they will pay through purchasing your product?
How can you craft a special offer that recognises these client objectives and use it to go out to the market and let them know that you are there to look after them.
Customer Inventory
I have walked into so many organisations recently where customers have been quoted as saying “I did not know that you offered that service”. Is this the case for your organisation?
- What products / services do you sell?
- Which customers are missing which products/ services?
- Do they even know you offer that product / service?
Do you have a process in place to capture this data?
Craft a campaign targeting those customers who already know you and have purchased from you with new information and a special offer around a product they have not yet purchased.
What other activities have worked in the past for you?