The Countdown to Blastoff —Farquharson/Tedesco

Let's look forward and think backwards for a second, starting with the end of the year. December is a sketchy sales month, and your efforts to gain appointments are met with inconsistent results. After Thanksgiving hits, the closer you get to Christmas, the more things slow down and more likely you are to hear the words, "Call me after the holidays."

While you shouldn't make any assumptions, you can't count on getting any momentum between the 1st of December and New Year's Day. The whole month is a wild card. That leaves November as the last solid selling month, and even that is cut short by a half-week of turkey basting and another 
half-week of turkey digestion and football games. November gets on the sales radar screen, but you'd better have done something prior so that those remaining three weeks are as effective as possible.

Which brings us to October, a great month to sell: No excuses; a full 21-selling-day month; EVERYONE has their head in the game by now. Combine a start-me-up September with a full-bore October and a break-neck November, and you've got yourself some serious sales momentum.

An Action Plan

Okay, so here's the recommended plan, broken down month-by-month:

August: Relax. Enjoy your lemonade. Read PI. Google "Farquharson" and "Tedesco."

September: In the three days prior to Labor Day, prepare your battle plan. Here's a checklist of what you'll need that plan to include:

• A list of prospects and dead accounts. Some idea of what to say to each contact name that is relevant to them, not you. In order to accomplish this you will need to have done research until you can finish the sentence that begins, "The purpose of my call is…" with something other than, "…to speak to the person who buys your printing."