by Elaine Slatter | Featured Contributor
It’s a great idea to fill your sales funnel over the summer when everyone is more relaxed. Sales are all about making connections with people in your target customer group. Sales don’t happen the first time you meet someone. There is a process for sales that takes time. During the summer people are on vacation, spending time with their families and generally having a good time. But that doesn’t mean they take the whole summer off! Well, a few people have that luxury, but for most of us, we are still working. It’s important to keep that in mind so you can still work on filling your sales funnel over the summer because what you are doing is building relationships for later on down the road, perhaps this fall or winter?
How can you fill your sales funnel over the summer?
- Invite your prospects to coffee on a patio or if you don’t have time for a physical meeting, why not schedule a coffee date over Zoom? Convenient for you and convenient for your contact.Attend networking events where your prospects are hanging out. If your target audience is golfers, then go to fundraising golf tournaments. There are plenty of opportunities to spend quality time building relationships when you are spending the whole day with like-minded people
- Seek out connectors – connectors are people who meet you and then offer to introduce you to other people who might need your services. They are usually introverts, really good listeners who want to understand you and your services, so be very clear what you and your services are all about. They don’t necessarily need your services themselves but are only too happy to introduce you to people who could.
- Tee up speaking engagements. Some conveners are looking for speakers up to a year in advance, so make contacts over the summer when it is less busy to seek out opportunities for later in the year.
- Strategically plan your fall and winter by mapping out how you are going to deliver value to the people already on your mailing list. You can prep for your courses, ebooks and maybe even map out your first book of authority and get started over the summer. Did you know that writing a book is the best way to give value to prospects? It is the best business card you can have, it will help you fill your sales funnel over the summer and all year long.
- Seek out collaborators – These are people who you know and maybe work in a similar field but your services are complementary to each other. You can even collaborate with trusted competitors if you decide that you can work together and carve out different sections where you agree not to compete.
Elaine Slatter is a Small Business Expert, founder of XL Consulting Group and author of the popular book, “Fabulous Fempreneurship”, a complete business guide for women. XL Consulting Group helps entrepreneurs with market planning, strategy, branding, web design and social media. She has over 30 years of executive business and marketing experience and is ready to help you rocket your business to success. Elaine is passionate about mentoring women to become successful women entrepreneurs. To find out more, visit XL Consulting Group or join the Fabulous Fempreneurship mastermind.
