This is not the time of year to boil the ocean.

Really, there’s no time of the year to boil the ocean. It’s time to keep your activities and processes simple. So what works best if simplicity is the name of the game? Check out these eight strategies.

1. Sell Urgency

Urgency works. Your customers have situations and things they need to accomplish this year. Make it easy for them to do business with you.

They may have money that they need to spend. Help them spend it! They may need to put what you offer in place before moving on to something else.

There’s even urgency that you can create in terms of, “Hey, if we don’t get this order in by this date, we’re going to run out of inventory.” Or, “We’re not going to be able to wind up providing you with this until X date.”

Please, don’t do any of your self-created urgencies unless they’re real. Don’t manufacture fake urgency. Customers can smell that.

2. Sell the High-Value Needs

Since the pandemic, customers are focused on just those one or two key priorities. When you get to the end of the year, this is even more true. In fact, we hear a lot of, “We’ll set this up next year.”

You’ve got to identify the most critical need they have and focus on that. When they say something to you, come back and ask them a question about it. Ask them another question. Flush that out as much as possible and leverage the information you gain.

3. Routine Orders

Yes, you’ve got routine orders that are coming in all the time. Make sure that they continue. Watch your customers to make sure that no order is forgotten.

Monitor routine orders so they happen on schedule, on time, and they include all of the items that should be in there.

4. Daily Target

Set yourself a daily objective. These are the number of calls I’m going to make. Make that your plan for the day.

5. Referrals

Referrals are the easiest way to grow your business.

It’s so easy to grow your business with referrals, and yet so few salespeople ask for them.

When you get referrals, these are many times people who are already motivated to buy. They’re qualified, they’re ready. Make it a focus of your time to be out asking for referrals. Then, when you get them, follow up.

Here’s a little trick: If someone gave you a referral three to six months ago, and something came of it, call them back up and say, “Hey, I was just thinking, thank you again for that referral that you gave me six months ago. They turned out to be a great customer.” You know what’s interesting? Many times they’ll respond, “Oh, you know what? Here’s somebody else I should refer to you.” Excellent!

6. Make It Easy

One of the things I love doing in terms of making it easier when I have a new customer that’s coming on board, I’ll say, “Hey, let’s go ahead and get the credit app filled out right now. And let’s get me set up as a vendor in your system right now.” The reason being is that when the order comes, you want to be able to push it through quickly.

That also means don’t pummel them with 10,000 decisions to make. Make it easy. How many times have you seen a new product come out, let’s say smartphones, and there are so many new smartphones on the market you don’t know which one to get, so as a result, you don’t buy anything.

Make it easy for your customer by just giving them one or two choices. It’s A or it’s B. That’s it.

7. Paperwork

Don’t allow yourself to start getting behind. Many times what happens is when salespeople get behind, they start not putting stuff into their CRM system. They start losing track of things.

Don’t fall into that habit! You’ve got to stay on track.

8. Speed Sells

If you have a customer with an opportunity, you have to help them with it right now. Now more than ever, once you get an inbound lead, you have one minute to call them back. One minute.

Speed sells because they have an itch, and if they don’t get it taken care of, they’re going to go someplace else.

This applies to follow-up meetings, too. Gone are the days of scheduling something for next week. No, let’s get a meeting on the calendar for tomorrow.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].