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Finish this Year Well and Start Strong in January

Fall can be an achingly beautiful season, but it can also be a pressure cooker if you serve clients.

In this last quarter of the calendar year, you need to finish well, regardless of when you close your fiscal year. At the same time, you need to prepare the foundations for a successful start of the new year—you can’t wait until January to think about it because if you do, you’ll already be behind.

So how do you excel at these simultaneous demands and stay sane? In this article, part one, I’ll share strategies for finishing the year strongly. In part two, coming soon, I’ll set out a roadmap for making sure your business is positioned for success as you enter the new year.

Strategies to Finish Well

1. Close current opportunities

Diana Ross and the Supremes sang, “You can’t hurry love, you’ve just got to wait.” Similarly, it’s hard to rush a sale. Clients go at their own pace, and especially if you haven’t optimally managed the business development process, you certainly can’t pressure a client into “closing” a deal.

That said, there are absolutely actions you can take to maximize your chances of winning your current new business opportunities.

Here’s a checklist of some questions to ask yourself about each opportunity you may be pursuing. These highlight major factors you can act on that can either accelerate or block a sale:

  • Is this truly an urgent/important issue—one of the client’s top priorities? (If not, maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree!).
  • Have you clearly demonstrated that the proposed work directly supports one or more key, strategic goals for your client’s organization?
  • Have you framed the problem fully–that is, defined the total problem and the complete solution?
  • Have you met or spoken to the decision maker or executive sponsor?
  • Are all the key stakeholders aligned, and do you understand what each hopes to get out of your proposed work?
  • Have you made a compelling benefits case, and does your client agree with it? (Clients tell me they are very skeptical of Pollyanna-ish claims about huge savings or revenue increases that providers claim they can deliver).
  • Has your client developed sufficient trust in your ability to address the issue?
  • Are you acting like you are already your client’s trusted advisor, adding value in each and every conversation?
  • Have you demonstrated how you will reduce risk for the client—both the risk of working with you/your firm and the risk of the work itself? Remember, less risk equals more trust.
  • Can you develop ways of structuring an engagement to potentially make it easier for your client to get started now rather than later? (See strategy #3–Optimize Revenue).

Lastly, have you made your most influential case for the client to say “yes”? Here is a recap of the four most basic influence appeals you should be leveraging:

  1. The Rational Appeal. Is your business case truly compelling? Does it include both quantitative and qualitative benefits? Recurring benefits over time? The benefits of strategic enablement at an enterprise level? The potential impact on decision-making, culture, engagement, retention, etc.?
  2. The Personal Appeal/Self Interest. Have you shown your client, and all key stakeholders, that the work in question will help them achieve their personal goals? (e.g., meeting their own performance objectives for the year, helping their career, enhancing their stature in the organization, strengthening their team, building their own leadership abilities, and so on?).
  3. The Emotional Appeal. In sales, it’s often said that facts tell and emotions sell. For example, an emotional appeal would focus on how the solution you are recommending will make people proud to work for their company. (BTW effective political slogans are almost always based on an emotional appeal…).
  4. Appeal to Consistency.Consistency of action and belief is a powerful force of influence. If your client has a stay-the-course mindset, is your proposal consistent with their current strategies and initiatives? Or, if the client sees themself as a maverick, is your approach fascinatingly contrarian and disruptive? Does it align with the client’s cultural values? Remember: If people agree to a small step in one direction, they are two or three times more likely to take a larger step in that same direction (the so-called Benjamin Franklin effect). So is there a non-threatening first step you can identify that will lead to a bigger step, e.g., to a stronger commitment to your work together?

2. Understand short-term agendas

Before this year ends, is there something you can help your clients accomplish? You might ask, “We’re just a couple of months from the end of the calendar year—I’m curious, what are your highest priorities in terms of what you’re trying to get done before January 1st?” It’s essential to understand your client’s longer-term priorities over the next six to 12 months, but don’t forget about the short-term, urgent issues that come up—clients need help with those as well. If someone is drowning, throw them a lifeline—don’t wax on about your plans for next year’s vacation as they are swallowing water!

3. Optimize revenue

There are a variety of strategies for optimizing your financial position before year-end. For example:

  • Can you manage pre-payments and/or postpone payments to mutual benefit?
  • Does your client have unused budget that will disappear at the end of the year? This is not uncommon, and there may be an opportunity to start a future engagement early, or complete a short-term project with some unexpected budget availability.
  • Can you agree a slow roll/earlier start for a new piece of business? Or a later start if that would suit both of you?

4. Show a personal touch

Year-end is also a challenging time for your clients. Like you, they face fierce, competing pressures. Is there something specific you can help them with on a more personal level? For example, this can be a time when some executives are considering new personal options, either internally or externally. In short, this is an important moment to stay close to them, be available as a sounding board, and just make their work life easier.

Summary

In the next few months:

  1. Focus on closing your highest-potential opportunities. Use the questions and influence techniques I’ve set out to help you maximize your success.
  2. Understand and help your clients with their short-term agendas.
  3. Review your strategies for optimizing revenue.
  4. Provide a personal touch. Show you care about your client as a person.

In addition, you must begin laying the foundations to start next year strongly. In part two of this article, coming soon, I’ll share strategies to help you hit the ground running in the new year.

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