Tonight is the beginning of the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah, and it marks the New Year in the Hebrew Calendar. At this time of year, I always tell our team something like, “Rosh Hashanah is the time to focus on finishing this year strong while simultaneously focusing on next year.”
The foundation of this approach is to understand our current and future customers’ most important objective, which might be different than it was previously. The way to figure this out is to treat every interaction as if it were a first meeting (Every Meeting is a First Meeting Article). Just because they did something a certain way previously, doesn’t mean they will continue doing it that way. When we uncover their most important objectives and focus on those, our solutions can be one of those new ideas. This starts with asking great questions like: What needs to happen in the fourth quarter for you to consider 2024 a successful year? What is the implication to you/your business when that happens? You can ask a similar question about 2025. Once you have those answers, you can decide if you have the products and solutions that will help your customers reach and exceed their goals.
One objection you could run into from customers when trying to talk 2025 is, “My budgets aren’t set yet.” Or if you’re talking fourth quarter 2024, they may say, “I have no budget left.” Although both might be true, if you present them with the right proactive ideas that will help them with their number one priority for the rest of 2024 or 2025, they just might say yes. Or at the least, they will put you at the top of their list for when they do set budgets for 2025.
When we understand what objectives are the most important for our customers, it allows us to present the right solutions, putting them, and us, in a position to win. I hope everyone has a happy and healthy 5785.
