Q4 is Here — How Are You Handling the Increased Workload?
All across the industry, promotional products distributors and salespeople are gearing up for the holiday season. Each month of the fourth quarter brings one major holiday, and while some will see more orders than others, there are still a plethora of company parties, employee appreciation events, customer-focused events, trade shows, and more where large quantities of promotional products are needed.
As a promotional product distributor or salesperson, it can be challenging to know how to prioritize your workload during these hectic months. With every order comes a long task list of customer communications, designs and adjustments, follow-ups with vendors, invoicing, shipping, order insurance, and more. And that’s just with orders themselves. You still have to spend time on your business — managing your team members and the related administrative functions, creating and launching marketing campaigns, monitoring sales, and so on. Sifting through all of this makes understanding how to prioritize your workload virtually impossible.
As a leader of your distributorship or a high-performing salesperson, it is paramount that your time and attention be focused on what will grow your business. To best know how to prioritize your workload around that, you must first ask yourself a simple question: Does this generate revenue? Don’t allow yourself to justify also asking whether the task contributes to revenue generation, as almost everything you do in your business can be connected to revenue generation in one way or another. Focus only on revenue generation.
Obviously, other tasks can’t be ignored. At iPROMOTEu, those tasks are the reason we exist. We believe that only by focusing on revenue generation can a promotional products distributor or salesperson truly grow their business and relationships. To help them do that, our organization takes the other tasks completely off their plate in several ways. Let’s explore how to prioritize your workload and the services we offer that can help you do just that.
How to Prioritize Your Workload by Task — and How We Can Help
Sales
It should go without saying, but selling is your top priority as a promotional products business leader. Whether you personally sell or if you have a sales team, the management of how revenue is coming into your business must occupy a significant portion of your time. To help our Affiliates know how to prioritize their workload around revenue-generating sales activities, we provide a number of services that eliminate the need to place their attention elsewhere.
Our sales assistant program provides Affiliates with a dedicated sales support person. This allows Affiliate leaders to focus on higher revenue opportunities while still giving other accounts attention and service. More importantly, it strengthens sales without adding the administrative costs of hiring a full- or part-time sales position. All sales support team members are fully trained and focus on doing what’s best for your customers.
Additionally, we have two experienced sales directors on staff that can provide one-on-one sales coaching and analysis. After doing a deep-dive into your current pipeline and process, they will provide a forensic analysis of your existing opportunities while also helping you identify ways to grow your existing relationships. Together, you’ll create a roadmap that will not only help bolster your short-term goals over the holidays but also for the months and years ahead.
Order Management
The logic is simple: with more orders comes more order management. Each touchpoint with a customer or vendor means more time taken away from new sales activities. While these are important tasks that ensure a satisfactory order experience, they can still be delegated out to free up more of your time for sales. At iPROMOTEu, we offer a full back-office support team that can handle almost all of these tasks for you.
Our back-office support team will take the lead on following up with vendors on every order you place, even providing detailed notes in the process so you’re kept in the know. They will also handle all aspects of invoicing — from receiving the vendor’s invoice to issuing your invoice (branded to your unique business) and managing all aspects of payment. If your customers have any rush or special requests, don’t worry — it’ll all be handled. And when those special occasions or time off comes around, this team will step in to support you while you’re out.
We also offer a special program that provides you with truly dedicated, one-on-one assistance — without the need to hire a support person in-house. Our Virtual Assistant Program (VAP), often cited by our Affiliates as one of the most valuable programs we offer, provides you with a dedicated administrative support person for as little or as much time as you choose. Your virtual assistant can handle everything from customer communications to managing marketing campaigns in order to grow your business. Each is professionally trained and has industry experience.
Marketing
Marketing is critical to your success. And yet, while it helps to produce more business, it can also quickly become a time-sink — especially if you’re creating campaigns and materials from scratch. Don’t derail your sales goals to create emails, brochures, and other materials when everything you need is already available.
We have developed a number of creative marketing campaigns designed to get you more opportunities than ever before. These campaigns, designed by our expert sales and marketing leadership, consistently result in set appointments for our Affiliates — and you don’t have to do anything to get them going. A wealth of collateral is also available for you to use in those appointments and to nurture repeat business from your existing customers. (And don’t worry — everything will be branded with your business’ name and identity.)
Order Financing
Last but certainly not least is our order financing support. This is perhaps the most singular reason why promotional products distributors and salespeople join our company. If you’ve ever been in a situation where a great sale quickly turned into a financial challenge, our order financing is the solution you need. Often, vendors require down payments, deposits, or even credit applications to move your customers’ orders forward.
To save you from having to spend money — and time — on these efforts, iPROMOTEu finances every order that our Affiliates place, large or small. This means we take the down payment, deposit, and credit application requirements off your plate entirely. Your order moves forward, and you don’t have to allocate your resources toward it. And with order insurance, your business is protected in the event your customer fails to pay.
Position Yourself for Success in Q4
If you’ve been wondering how to prioritize your workload for the year’s busiest quarter, the answers are available to you at iPROMOTEu. Our only goal is to make your promotional products business more efficient, productive, and successful, and everything we offer is designed to do just that. Don’t wait until you’re up to your shoulders in administrative work that you don’t have enough time to complete. Join the iPROMOTEu family today.
iPROMOTEu is a no-brainer. It means, simply, more money in our products. More selling time, more support, better systems and record-keeping, great marketing suggestions, and the nicest people in the industry.
Jeff Benesch (Affiliate since 2007)