Your current customers are an untapped source for sales.
Of course, current customers can’t be your only focus. That would lead to a dry or clogged pipeline.
But if your pipeline is looking okay, and you need another year-end sales strategy to meet your goals, it’s time to go back to your customer contacts. You might be surprised at the deals you’re able to make!
1. Check order history
Don’t just look at what customers are ordering today. Look at what they were ordering six months ago, a year ago. What’s changed?
Are there items that they’re no longer ordering?
Are there things that they are ordering now that they weren’t ordering then?
Look for all of the gaps that you can find in the history of orders, and this is going to give you opportunities to have discussions. “Hey, I notice you haven’t ordered this in a while. Why?” Or, “I notice you’re ordering this, but you’re not ordering that.”
2. Add-on sales
I use my order history to begin to determine the next logical item. In other words, they may be ordering one thing and there’s a logical companion item they may not be aware of–perhaps even because they’re buying it from somebody else.
I need to make sure I’m following up with them and I’m making recommendations. It’s very easy since the customer is already set up in the system.
This is an easy way to create incremental business for you and satisfy your customer’s needs that much better.
3. Know the calendar
Know exactly how many days you have left, because you’ve got your calendar marked off with holidays that you’re taking, or vacation days that you’re taking. You also want to know when you’re closed, when your customers are closed, etc.
I talked about this topic in much more detail in a previous video you can watch here or blog you can read here.
4. Year-end funds
It’s time for a very serious conversation with each division you sell to. You may sell to multiple divisions within the same company, and you may hear one division tell you, “Oh, we don’t have any year end money.”
Do not assume that with other divisions. Because different divisions, different departments, different groups are going to have different budgets, different piles of available money that you can tap into.
5. Referrals
All you have to do is ask. Call up every one of your existing customers. The easiest referral is a referral within the company.
Watch this The Sales Hunter Podcast episode with Bill Cates on How to Get More Referrals or find Episode 21 wherever you stream.
In other words, you’re dealing with a certain department and you ask them, “Hey, who else in your company should I be talking to?” Boom, easy.
It might be other suppliers, other vendors, other customers that they have. There are so many ways for you to be getting referrals, but you’ve got to ask for them.
This Thursday, join guest Jeb Blount and Mark for a conversation on returning to the fundamentals in times of crisis.
Find The Sales Hunter Podcast wherever you stream.
6. Thank you calls
I love thank you calls. November and December is when you want to be making thank you calls to all your customers. Now, these are over and above everything else that you’ve done for the client. Only do this if you’re genuinely thankful.
“Hey, thank you for the business we’ve been able to do this year. It’s been absolutely terrific. I’ve appreciated it. I valued it, and I’m looking forward to next year…yada, yada, yada.”
What’s interesting is they’re going to wind up suddenly telling you what they have in store for next year. “Oh, you know what? We need to talk about this, or we need to talk about that.” It is a very easy way to generate more sales.
7. Brothers and sisters
The other day, I was doing some work with a company that is owned by a holding company that owns five other companies. So, guess what? There are multiple other brothers and sisters. So, I’m working to find out who the people I should be talking to in those other brother and sister companies are.
There may be distant relatives. In other words, there may be a company that you’re selling to and they are the exclusive supplier to another company. Well, guess what? I want to find out who that other company is, because there may be other things that I can sell them.
Look for all of the other entities that your current customers are dealing with, as they all become opportunities for you.
8. Speed sells
You’ve got to make it extremely easy for your customers to do business. I’m going to land and expand.
In other words, I may not be able to fulfill this entire order, but I’m going to send you what I can do right now with this. And then I’ll expand it, meaning when I get the inventory, I’ll get the rest of this taken care of.
9. Year-end business reviews
These are so easy. You call up a customer and you say, “Hey, getting to the end of the year, and I’d love to come in and have a conversation with you about all the business that we’ve been able to do this year, and just talk about where the business lies.”
This is not a historical recap. You’re going to have just a little bit of historical recap, but it’s about creating future conversations. That’s what your goal is.
Your goal is also to be able to get a conversation going with people further up in the food chain than just the customer you sell to. It might be senior management, but you’re going to have that conversation with them.
You may suddenly wind up with year end opportunities. More importantly, you’re probably going to wind up with big opportunities that you can chase next year.
10. Double check each order.
Things can get missed very easily, and you could miss your number by 1% or 2% simply because orders didn’t get processed correctly.
Double check each order. Be absolutely careful.
What you missed on Monday:
The Sales Hunter Podcast coming at you TWO TIMES a week!
This past Monday: How to Get Prospects to Respond
Have you stopped believing you can help your prospects? Prospects will respond if they believe you can help them with a current important issue.
Listen to this episode wherever you stream, and learn from Mark how to create confidence and stay relevant.
NEW Masterclass available centered around better follow-up and preventing radio silence.
Become immersed in the 6 training videos and workbook and turn into a master of communication, conversation, and returning to the art of helping people.
If you know you can help a prospect, it’s your responsibility to reach out….and keep reaching out. Let Mark teach you how.
Enroll in the Stop Getting Ghosted Masterclass here.
Read more from this Year End Series here:
How Salespeople Can Organize Their Time AND Goals
During Year-end: How to Keep Your Sales Simple
How Prospecting Looks Different in Q4
Copyright 2022, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of A Mind for Sales and High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.
