Hey Reader,

January feels like the off-season for everything. Does your revenue feel as seasonal as farming and harvesting with a few months of the year making most of your sales? It's frustrating, and there's not always something that can be done to fix it. or is there...

One thing that hits hard is when you have major dips in your revenue. The longer you experience swings in revenue, the more likely you'll get comfortable with those results.

Comfort can be very dangerous, so what do you do?

Many start with inventory clear-out sales and year-end deals that stretch into January. These are staples and work pretty well. Couldn't you do more though? The typical discount style lends itself to customers who want a low price, but that's not helpful when you have serious competition or use value-based pricing.

Solution Ideas

Product Side

• Annual sales that are labeled specifically to train customers to buy then
• Front load the year with this product and get an X item for free
• New years resolution, game changing choices

Any offer that you make for January, assuming it's the off-season for your product, shouldn't cannibalize sales from other times of the year. There are so many cool ways you can go!

Service Side

• Off-season discounts
• Service agreement specials
• Free consult to the first X people
• Prepay bonuses

Pushing recurring revenue agreements should be timed around buying cycles if possible and several organizations run on a calendar financial cycle. You want to skew towards offering more for the same price instead of the discount route. Yes, you could lose sales this way, but you will be focusing on value instead of price. The value-based conversation is completely different and this is an excellent way to practice.

Operations Side

• Transparency works. Ask employees for help in deciding what to cut and how they'll work around issues
• Pull a list of expenses and ask for a rebid. You can always ask to reprice your costs. Make it a habit
• Make it a team sport. Give rewards to those that save the company money. Publicly and financially
• Check out the Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS) for ideas on increasing alignment in your company

No one cares as much as the owner, but that doesn't mean that they won't step up when you enable them.

That's all for this time.

If you need anything or have questions about business development or email marketing, just hit reply and let me know!

Best,

Clayton

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