You have a more important goal than closing business for Q4.
No, you don’t need your glasses to read that again. If your focus is on winning as much business as possible before year-end, you’ll be starting 2025 in a losing position—with a lackluster pipeline and few new sales opportunities for the New Year.
Take your eyes off the Q4 prize for a moment. Your team should already be on the closing business trajectory. Keep them there. But to set your sales organization up for success in 2025, you also need to:
Prioritize Pipeline-Building Over Last-Minute Deals
The last quarter of the year should be 25 percent about closing current deals and 75 percent about building a robust pipeline for the next year.
Don’t let your team waste time chasing new deals for 2024. Focus on finishing up what’s already well along in your sales process and encourage them to spend the rest of their time thinking ahead and prospecting for 2025.
(Image attribution: icetrayimages794)
Savvy account-based sales reps know the one or two deals they can close this year because they’ve outlined the steps to get there. Those deals are already in the works and fall into one of three categories:
- Waiting for the agreements to be signed: Are they stalled in legal? You know the steps to get them out.
- One more reference to check: You’ve coordinated with the client who is giving the reference and ensured the conversation has happened.
- The decision is stalled: Do you know the reason? It could be time to bring in your CEO to close the deal.
If the deal doesn’t fall into one of these categories, it is not far enough along to close this year.
Referrals = New Sales Opportunities
It’s tough to focus on prospecting when you’re working on a massive project or closing a big deal. But if you’re not regularly adding qualified opportunities to your pipeline, you’ll have no pipeline.
(Image attribution: ada_aj)
Give your reps new business goals for 2025. Smart account-based sales reps are always focused on how to generate leads while also staying in touch with current clients. Your clients are your best source of new sales opportunities; their referrals are the most effective and efficient way to get meetings with hot prospects. Yet, very few salespeople have asked every client for a referral introduction. And by “client,” I mean everyone your team has had contact with during the sales process.
Clients are glad to give referral introductions. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get. They might not know you want more clients, and they don’t know specifics about who you want to meet. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, our clients aren’t mind readers.
Make Referrals Your Priority
When a client provides a referral, follow up promptly. Keep your client informed about how the referral process is going and express your appreciation again.
Here’s a cool question to ask referred prospects: “Are you in minimizing-risk mode, cost-savings mode, growth mode … or just ‘leave me alone’ mode?” The answer will tell you how to proceed with your prospecting.
Now’s the time to pick up the phone and ask for referrals. Then meet those referred prospects in person or schedule a video conference and learn the answer to this question. This strategy will fill your pipeline with plenty of new sales opportunities for 2025.
Be sure to join the conversation on LinkedIn: Without ROI, Your Sale Is DOA.
(Featured image attribution: yganko)
