The Catalyst

2012: THE Q4 JUMP-START | ESA & COMPANY
Estimates for 2012 are all over the map, and most are cloaked in a waning degree of confidence. How good will your 2012 be? It’s directly related to your sales performance in Q4 of 2011. The following is one of a series of quick posts to help local sales teams get a jumpstart on 2012 … right now.

QUESTION:
Is your sales team poised for a Q4 + 2012 surge?

ANSWER:
The best developmental AEs expect 5 or more QUALIFIED, in-person sales calls per week during October and November. This cannot happen unless it is preceded by an equally strong surge of prospecting and cold-calling. No surprise — the phrase we hear most this time of year from advertisers: “Perfect timing … we are setting / reevaluating our media budgets for next year right now.” None of this happens without a little planning.

ADVICE:
Sales teams absolutely need to deliver a peak of selling activity during October and November. Each salesperson should be averaging 20+ cold-calls per week in advance of this surge. That is not a tall order at all — even though many in sales fail to even approach this volume. FYI, the media industry averages just under 12 cold-calls (and under 2 meetings) per week. We can do much better — and need to during this critical window!

Dave Eckstein is a Partner in the firm ESA & Company. He specializes in highly profitable market share growth for local businesses and gets a kick out of demonstrating a declining cost of customer acquisition.