Turn lower levels of activity at the end of the year into an opportunity to plan for success in the New Year.
Once holiday sales begin to ramp up, traditionally, point of sale (POS) and payment system sales drop off. It’s not hard to understand why. Peak traffic times aren’t the time for merchants to stop and consider new technology, and it’s certainly not reasonable to deploy a new system while sales associates are busy assisting hordes of holiday shoppers. So, the holidays have become somewhat of a season of downtime for North American Bancard Sales Partners — but it is also a perfect opportunity for planning and optimizing your business strategy for the New Year.
What to watch in 2022.
In the past few years, ISO agents have had to address numerous challenges with little warning. First, the pandemic, then shutdowns that impacted your markets and, in some cases, your own business, limitations on travel, and dramatic shifts in demands for IT solutions. Although there’s no way to know the future, trends are shaping up this year that can help you prepare for what lies ahead.
- Study your market with fresh eyes: The business challenges that your customers faced in 2019 are probably not at the top of their priority lists right now. Research, talk to your vendors and business partners and survey your customers to understand the most pressing needs, as well as how the solutions you provide can help address them.
- Strategize on building your pipeline: A quiet holiday season around your office is a good time to plan better ways to collect quality leads. Evaluate how your current processes are working — and where you need to do better. For example, you may consider how well your website is working for you to attract prospects and to convert them to leads, whether you will plan more in-person meetings next year, and if you need more marketing or sales support. Once you determine your objectives, create a plan to execute.
- Nurture both short-term and long-term opportunities: It’s always frustrating to invest time and effort into a long sales cycle, but in 2022 it may be worth considering pursuing all options. Uncertainty about the pandemic, the economy, and our international supply chain may add up to an unusual year. Inquiries you make now may not pay off until fall. However, that may position you for a stronger year revenue-wise.
- Get to know individual prospects before your meeting. If any of your prospects said, “Call me in January,” make the most of the time you have before that meeting. The more you know about the customer, the more relevant your presentation can be. Also, it gives you time to work out numbers that will show how an investment in technology can mean more revenues or cost-savings for the prospect’s business. It’s all information that can help improve your conversions.
Establish KPIs.
In addition to evaluating processes and adapting them to selling in the post-pandemic world, you can also assess past performance and establish ways to keep a close eye on your business in the future.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) help you measure how well your team is progressing toward your goals. Examples of sales team activities you may want to track and quantify include:
- Sales target – Compares wins over time to a target you’ve set or to the same period in a previous year.
- Closing ratio – Compares the ratio between quotes and deals closed.
- Average sale – Shows how much revenue a typical deal generates while helping you put a value on future opportunities.
- Call volume – This shows how productive sales reps are based on calls, meetings, emails, and other interactions they have with prospects.
- Retention and churn – Tracks how many customers you retain and lose, which, if churn exceeds retention, can negatively impact business growth.
There are numerous other KPIs that sales teams use to track their performance, but you shouldn’t attempt to monitor them all. Instead, find a few areas where you see a need for improvement. Then find a way to quantify and track progress, and make changes when your strategy isn’t working. Doing so will help you and your team understand performance — and celebrate steps toward reaching your goals in 2022.
Time to think.
Leaders and managers often struggle between finding time to work “in their businesses” versus working “on your business.” The holidays allow you to work on your business without being pulled away by sales meetings or the usual day-to-day activities that take up your time in other months throughout the year. Capitalize on the quiet time during the holidays, and think through how to successfully grow your portfolio in 2022.
