I can see the end of the year, can’t you?
So my thoughts have turned to 2013. At least kind of. Not be
cause I’m done with 2012 or have given up on it. But because these last three months of 2012 not only will make your 2012 happy and bright, but because they will also make 2013 your best year ever.
Let me give you the back story…
I worked at MCI in the 90s. At the time, MCI was one of the most aggressive marketing companies you’d ever seen. They created all kinds of strategies and programs that changed the face of telecommunications…until WorldCom came along and bought them (that’s another story).
MCI had a secret to its success. A secret that enabled them to increase sales pretty much year after year. A secret that allowed them to start the new year with spectacular results. A secret that their competitors just didn’t seem to get.
MCI drove their business around this secret and powered it into all of us. Our sales meeting was built around it; our promotions were focused on it. As I look back on this knowledge now, it’s brilliant, but I don’t hear anyone talking about it. So I am.
Here’s what MCI knew and did. They knew that the centerpiece of a great business year was to have an amazing first quarter—January, February and March. Start the year fast, and build on that success. They also knew that their customers were in an eggnog coma at least until the end of January, unable or unwilling to say “yes” to anything, and many didn’t have their budgets until February at best.
So MCI knew that to have a fabulous first quarter—a quarter that set the year off on the right path by actually having sales when customers weren’t in the buying mode—they had to have an amazing FOURTH quarter!
To be busy and billing in January, February and maybe even March, they had to be leading, marketing and selling like nobody’s business in October, November and December. Get the business sold in the last quarter and deliver and invoice in the first quarter.
Guess what? That’s true for you, too.
Your customers are also in a holiday hang-over in January, maybe paying off credit card bills or working without their budgets. They aren’t ready to buy much of anything from you.
So for you to be busy and billing in those first sleepy months, you’re marketing and selling in the last months of 2012 for delivery and billing come early 2013.
So simple and yet so effective.
Now you’re one of the few who know the secret. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to be one of the very few to use it? You’ve got 3 months to step up. What’s your marketing commitment to make it happen?
Hint: it first involves working “on” your business. No plan? What can you expect from your execution??
Go. I hear the clock ticking…
Go forth and do great things,
Martha Hanlon and Chris Williams