Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: Fighting the Summer Doldrums

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...I used to think that the summer doldrums were a myth, or maybe a lousy, lazy excuse for not working as hard as one should in the summer. I even had one sales rep tell me once that he did not even bother to leave his office in the summer because none of his customers wanted to see him. I gave him his 30-day notice.

Now I must admit that by tracking trends for the past five years, I've found it's true--the summer months are indeed slower. It seems to start with the school year ending, graduations, the Fourth of July (which for many--too many--has become a week-long celebration), vacations, Labor Day (another potential week-long celebration), then back to school and college and...bang the summer is over. We also have to face the fact that as our work force ages, many people (many of them buyers) take four and five weeks of vacation each year. All of this seems to indicate there is some truth to the rumor that summers are now slower times for business than they once were.

However, that does not mean that like my previously-mentioned, terminated rep we spend the months of June, July, and August whiling the way the time in our offices trying to see how many sharp pencils we can stick into the ceiling tiles. A number of things can be done to fight the summer doldrums. In fact, we can use this time to make lemonade out of lemons. We can view these warm months as a time to hone marketing skills and sharpen sales skills.

Here are five ways for you to squeeze the most out of those summertime "lemons."

1. Prepare for slow times: When developing your annual forecast, make sure you plan for the summer months accordingly. Go back and look at your booking history for those months for the past five years and use these levels as a benchmark to forecast the upcoming summer months. Try to be as accurate as possible--this will help your operations people plan for those months as well. They can plan shop maintenance, vacation times, and in-house renovations.
2. Get a good idea of what your current customers will be doing during these slow months. Talk to them; find out if the people you interface with will be taking vacations and when they will be taking them. Ask what they see coming up in the next 90 days; ask when they will have new business orders (or re-orders) and when those will be placed. If your buyer, engineer, or project manager will be out find out who will cover for him. If any of your customers have a company shut down--on, say, the week of the Fourth of July--find out. This should all be part of your forecasting effort. This information will also give you a good idea as to how much time you'll be spending with your customers.
3. If you're working with new customers (or if you're trying to get that first order) work with that customer to make sure the order is placed as soon as possible so that the process can continue uninterrupted. Use the summer situation as an actual deadline to get that order placed before the summer slowdown.
4. Go after new customers: If times are so slow you'll have plenty of time to go after new customers. Your current customers will be taking less of your time, thus freeing you up for prospecting, lead generation, cold calling, and setting up meetings with new, potential customers. I know that with summer being summer they'll be harder to get to than in other months, but if you use your time wisely now you will set yourself well on that path of landing a new customer. Even if you don’t actually book that first order in the summer you'll have a great head start on booking it in the fall.
5. Go after those customers who are already in your pipeline, the ones you've been diligently pursuing for the past few months. This is a great time to win them over. Because of the slowdown, your operations people will be more amenable to letting you make them an offer they can’t refuse. This is a great time for strategic pricing that will help you convert targets into customers.

And one more piece of advice (remember always underpromise and overdeliver):Offer services you don’t normally offer. If, for example, you're a production shop with normal lead times, this is a great time to offer quick-turn work. Summer is also a great time to work on new technologies, so bring in business based on a technology you've not yet offered. Of course, make sure it's something you can build and a technology you're in the process of developing already. Summer is a great time to go live with that technology with a paid audition from a customer.

Finally, realize that if you're a great salesperson there's no slow time of the year--always be out there selling. Opportunities are always available and it's your job as a salesperson to find or create them. It’s only common sense.