Planning to Avoid That Summer Sales Slump

Across most of the United States, summertime can prove to be brutal for businesses. As the weather warms up, many companies see sales numbers go down. This could be due to clients taking advantage of their vacation schedule or choosing to work shorter hours due to being lured by the outdoors and wanting more flexibility for their family. Even manufacturers experience production lulls due to higher outside temperatures. However, proper strategic planning can help keep the numbers strong during these typically less productive months.

Through the Idea Factory, Black Twig’s strategic marketing planning tool, we meet with a company’s key stakeholders to dissect the brand and its current and future customers to identify strategies, messaging and possible outcomes that will lead to increased sales success. During this roundtable discussion, every stakeholder has the opportunity to share opinions on the company’s brand, strengths, and what areas of the business can be improved upon. Although this exercise typically happens after the company has its mission, vision and values firmly in place, at times, these can change based on information uncovered in these sessions. In one instance, a large manufacturer of lighting components realized that before they could begin touting the success of a newly created product, they first had to sell off a sizable inventory of a similar product with lesser technological advantages.

While it’s important to examine who you are as a company and why you are in existence, it is more important to know how your customer feels when they hear your company’s name or see your logo. Within these meetings we also examine the competition and determine how your company stacks up.

• What do they do well?
• What do you do better than them?
• What do you offer that they do not?
• What can your customers gain by doing business with you instead of them?
• What differentiates you from your competition?

At its outset, the Idea Factory provides companies with a unified strategy that will help both the client and its marketing team work cohesively toward common goals and possibly help prevent a lull in summer sales.

Black Twig has led Idea Factory sessions for many various companies throughout its tenure including, Koller Craft, the Harlan Company and NewGround. To learn more about the companies we have worked with and how the Idea Factory might be able to help your company, contact Tom Gatti at 314-536-8906 or via email.