As you all know, we are starting our approach towards the Holiday season…yes, I said it.
Earlier in my career, I had a boss tell me, “you want your name to come across their desk the moment money becomes available.” I know the days of use it or lose it are all but long gone, but you never know if you can stick a landing on a quick win.
Curious to hear what strategies some of you have trying to find some quick wins or any luck finding year end money.
This is great, Greg! I literally just had a customer make a purchase with last year’s budget, before their new fiscal year started. It was great!
Truth be told, I am obsessed with my customer’s and implemented “Lunch-N-Learn” (LNL) sessions with them, so that we could show them the value of our Platform and Best Practices. I ordered UberEats Cards for those that attended.
I even asked our CEO if he would “Pop In” during one of our LNL’s to say hi as a special guest appearance and he ended up staying for the whole event and even scheduled another one, because there was great interactions.
I believe that if we truly take the time to solve business problems and build lasting relationships, we won’t be surprised by our Client’s going out of their way to find budget or use unbudgeted funds/capital.
Thanks for posting this, Greg!
Awesome. Let’s discuss over lunch. Text you tomorrow. Thanks Greg.
From experience I’d stress to the group that there should be a smooth transition from Q1-3 into Q4, meaning you shouldn’t just expect to drop in out of the blue, check in a bit, and expect budget to fall into your lap. So be sure there’s a natural progression of consistency in your communication, and remain empathetic throughout. Don’t go into Q4 with the expectation of getting handed that budget. As Greg said “You want your name to come across their desk the moment money becomes available.” That happens by maintaining a supportive presence and adding value w/ each interaction. Puts you in a way better place if/when there’s money on the table. And even then, it’s still a challenge of course. So remain composed, dedicated to being a problem solver, and lead with being that reliable strategic partner.
The more connections you make within your customers’ companies, the more likely you’ll be to get a heads up when budget opens up, or budget needs to be spent, by the end of the year.
Network, network, network.
Every connection and relationship you make (and preserve) has value in both the short and long term.
Hi Greg! Agreed with your exhortation to be ready to seize use it or lose it budgets. This exact scenario of keeping in touch (being the name that hit the desk) and capturing the budget paid off for me and my customer. The “keeping in touch” was an 18-month effort. The discovery > demo > close effort took 3 months.