How to avoid the summer slump

Your busy, and that's great. Some of you are really busy. You've made good progress since the start of the year. 

Now you have stopped doing outreach, stopped doing lead generation, and neglected your marketing. Why? Because you are too busy working on your business, serving your existing customers and making them happy. 

We have all been here. 

Before you know it, the days turn into weeks, a month passes you by, and then 2 months where you have not reached out to any new prospects. You don't have a marketing system in place to bring in new leads. 

You hit the wall 

Common excuse (I hate)

."summer is always a quite period"

Summer is only quiet when you have not put in enough ground work in the 3 months leading up to it to have enough leads and consultations, to give you projects to work on. Most people start dealing with the summer when the summer arrives. Bad idea. Everything you do is always 3 months ahead of time.

What do you do now. 

Action 1: 

(20mins) Make a marketing outreach plan

Don't take too long doing it and it shouldn't be longer than 1 page. 

Before you do this, you know who you ideal customer is. 

If you don't have your ideal customer sorted, then refer to this post about how to build your perfect avatar. 

Plan to give yourself 1-2 hours every week for reaching out to new customers. Lock it into you diary. 

Action 2: Build a target list 

You should have a target list

Go through LinkedIn and search for ideal customer. 

Log their names in to XL. 

Set a goal to reach out to 10 new people every week with a personalised message. 

Action 3: Execute or Outsource 

Start reaching out to your target market. Invite them for a coffee, ask to buy them lunch. Tell them how you can help, and how you have helped other similar companies. 

If you realise that you do not have the capacity to reach out to new prospects. Hire a marketing partner to run this for you. 

ProTip: Prospecting tip

When you are doing outreach and prospecting, here are some basic rules. 

The #1 Rule: don't go for the kill in round 1. 

What Boxer do you know does that? It's normally in the later rounds that you can secure the win. 

So play the long game. 

Introduce yourself. 

Be entertaining. 

Offer some value 

Find out some relatable bit of information from their LinkedIn or other social platforms, and start with that. 

You're trying to build rapport by starting a conversation. 

Once that person knows, likes and, trusts you... now they will consider working with you!  

Now go ahead... kill that summer slump!