Building a Sales Fast Start to 2009

Starting a new year always prompts sales leaders to consider how best to get a Fast Start on the Sales year. History and experience proves Q1 can be a tough selling Quarter. Fall too far behind in Q1 and you may spend the rest of the year trying to catch up.

Depending on industry and product, sales revenue may be dramatically unevenly distributed across all calendar Quarters. Actually for most companies, there is a predictable and familiar skew to the Quarters revenue. Perhaps the Quarterly average percent of the annual revenue looks something like this: Q1 18%, Q2 22%, Q3 23%, Q4 37%. Of course this always prompts the critical thinkers to ponder cause and effect...

If your company is slow to roll out the new year, consideration for a Fast Start effort is even more critical. Given historical low Q1 performance there is always the temptation to focus on a Fast Start effort to push results a few points higher. For many companies Q1 is full of organizational meetings, planning meetings, and other non customer oriented activities. With that level of distraction, it can be difficult to get management focus on a Q1 Fast Start effort.

Looking at the numbers, it is hard to deny the need to get started quickly in the sales year. I believe it is prudent to put an effort in place to move the sales force quickly to a sales mode and avoid a prolonged period of distraction. Given where we are economically, and a Q4 depleted sales pipeline, a Fast Start plan must be realistic in expectations. But, it should be an easy math exercise to prove the advantage or raising the Q1 contribution to the year.

Mechanically, Fast Start efforts typically include sales incentives, special product messaging, contests, and raised awareness. Examine carefully the potential benefits and costs of a Fast Start Sales effort. If a Fast Start is what you need, deploy it immediately.