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Discover the data, tactics and trends shaping successful prospecting in 2023 - based on 49.5 million emails.
Posted on: August 8, 2022
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Category: B2B marketing
In a recent survey of B2B businesses, we found that:
The summer slump is frighteningly real.
And it’s most likely coming to your business soon…
But statistics only paint a picture. There are ways to beat the summer slump and avoid dropping productivity.
Here’s how B2B businesses can deal with summer slumps.
Sometimes I wonder what I’m a gonna do
But there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues
Eddie Cochran
Call us reckless, but we’ve shut down ‘malevolently mischievous sales-sucking monsters’ as an outlandish conspiracy theory (that’s a Gremlins reference if you didn’t catch it!), and decided to ask the businesses we surveyed for what was causing these slumps.
Perhaps, most surprisingly, given how widespread and significant the slump is, we found that 42% of businesses are actually doing nothing proactive to counter it.
Of businesses that are taking proactive approaches:
It’s clear that the big, bad summer slump is no fictional bogeyman: it’s real – and two-thirds of B2B businesses have already identified its effects.
But many businesses do not have tactics in place to deal with and counter these effects.
As one survey respondent commented:
‘I’m not sure there are measures in place, but we expect it every year.’
Well, we’ve collectively cracked our heads together, got out there and consulted with our customers and diligently researched during the extra hours of daylight that summer allows.
And we’ve put together a list of best practice for keeping an even keel over that summer slump.
One way to handle the drop in sales – without seeing a collapse in morale – is to change your sales team’s goals.
Instead of focusing mainly on the total amount of revenue that is brought in, the emphasis falls more onto appointment-setting.
And these appointments, of course, could be beyond the slump period.
If the leads are drying up in your funnel then another option is to switch your focus to building relationships and upselling current customers or reactivating dormant customers.
How about devoting time with current customers to secure referrals?
It’s a highly effective sales tactic but one that, far too often, gets lost in the wash.
We can’t think of a better time to shift your attention to securing referrals.
What’s the click-through rate on your outreach emails and when did you last test creatives or try and improve on what you currently achieve?
Downtime could be usefully spent creating test templates to deploy when things pick up.
Your sales database is the – often hidden – foundation of your sales results.
During the extra time that your staff have in a slump, they can spend valuable time improving the database by ensuring fields are completed consistently and deadwood is removed.
If your typical prospects aren’t available, then now is a great time to plan to mine for more.
This could simply be ramping up your prospecting activity to fill the pipeline for more fruitful times, but it could also be getting things in place to expand into new areas. Maybe you have an idea of a new market – or a decision-making segment – that you are currently not hitting?
Prospecting outreach is all about building your pipeline for the future, the activity you do now will result in closed business three months from now. It’s the 30, 60, 90-day sales life cycle:
The idea of stopping the first part of your sale cycle during a “slower period” will only hurt you three months later, when you are having to build your pipeline back up.
Now is the time to get the ball rolling…
Although there’s little you can do about the holiday times of your prospects and leads, there’s plenty you can do to avoid scheduling conflicts and overlapping holidays by planning ahead with your team.
Similarly, your sales team should check when they’ve arranged to touch base with leads and either ensure they are in the office at that time or politely reschedule.
Likewise, unless you are dropping your sales targets and focusing on other goals, then if it takes 15 meetings or demos each month to hit targets, make sure these are all booked prior to or after their holiday.
If you are committed to growing or maintaining your sales during the slump, you can plan to introduce a special summer bonus for sales to incentivise productivity and activity.
But, if hitting that target is highly unlikely, you could offer a bonus for the team member who brings in the most sales that month.
You are not alone in experiencing a sales slump; it affects your competitors too.
One way to grab attention at this time is to offer a seasonal sale to try and close deals left open and grab the attention of existing and potential prospects.
As you are expecting to get Out of Office notifications at these times, make a careful note of the date your contact will be back and schedule a call in your CRM.
By carefully reviewing your team’s performance over seasonal slumps you can highlight the actions and tactics of those who still hit their targets. These best practices can be shared with the team as a whole.
Happy employees are 12% more productive at work, according to the University of Warwick. Maybe these slumps are the best time to plan team events and informal outings to help the team bond and keep everyone motivated.
This is an ideal opportunity for sales to work closely with marketing to align messages.
Seasonal slumps can be used to revamp and reinvigorate your social media strategy. Maybe you’re not using Instagram or your Facebook posts are a little uninspiring. With some careful planning, you could be prepared with content to engage and stimulate your audience for months ahead.
In the same way, planning content for blogs can ensure that there won’t be that last-minute scramble for ideas or arguments over timings.
Take the free time that you have to work on developing case studies, getting testimonials and asking for reviews.
Most customers who have received good service are more than happy to give a testimonial, but often struggle to find the time. It just slips down that to-do list.
You can address this by doing all the heavy-lifting for them and simply sending them a testimonial or case study for approval.
We expect a slump in summer every year.
But the worst way to approach a challenge is to give in.
Do not stop driving your business forward: hopefully, you can now put some measures in place to minimise the expected slump.
One option to combat that summer slump is to outsource lead generation efforts – hand over an entire channel or a chunk of the goals to an expert outreach company. Read our report on the link below, or contact one of our outreach experts to discuss it further.
Darren Gooding
An up-to-date, relevant, and segmented database is the first secret to successful prospecting. And while reaching that goal can take …
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