It’s no secret, in many markets the final two months of the year can be a tough time to get the results you were able to get in the summer selling months earlier this year. The truth though, is a lot of your top-tier salespeople have some of their best months in November and December.

Let’s explore why, and what you can do to be a top contributor for the next two months.

CRM is king

Obviously, this is true year-round. Day in and day out a professional (you are a professional, right?) salesperson makes the most of the tools they have.  The CRM is the most crucial tool to your success, and becomes even more vital in the slower months.

If you are in a market where the weather gets bad, and potential customers are more hesitant to leave the comfort of their homes, you will need to master your CRM activity to make the most of your opportunities.

Hopefully, your CRM provider and CRM Admin at your dealership have worked together to set up a proper follow-up process conducive to your success. Now, you must follow it! This is not optional. So many times, I see salespeople with overdue CRM activities and they fall way behind.

I get it. You were busy yesterday. You sold 2 cars. You had that one guy come up from service and take up 30 minutes of your time. The internet went down in the store for an hour, so on, and so on.

We all have things interrupt our daily plan and activities, but if you want to be successful, you have to make the time and find ways to keep up with your schedule.

Those who become masters at working within their CRM will not only have better success than their peers who don’t, but developing these habits now, during the slower months will also carry forward into the new year.

Make it personal

It’s very easy to get caught up in our day to day work that we often make our follow up about the car and the car only. When we do follow-up (probably not often enough) with our previous and current customer base, we send them some run of the mill email asking them “when can you come in” or a phone call saying, “how’s the car treating you”.

Guess what? Every car salesperson in the history of car sales is doing the same thing. Albeit, probably not even doing that as often and consistently as they should. You have to find ways to set yourself apart.

Call them and ask how they are doing.

Send them a card (you do have the holidays coming up).

Send them a video email to say hi.

It will take a little bit more work and creativity that most of your competition won’t do. This alone will set you apart and make you more memorable.

This may not sell you a car today or even this month, but once again, you are developing habits that will carry into next year and make you that much better.

Don’t believe that guy

You know who I’m talking about. The guy that’s been at the dealership 8 years. He spends half the year near the top of the board, and the other half in the middle because he spends most of his day staring out the window waiting for that good up.

He’s going to tell you how bad the winter is in car sales. He’s going to tell you that there is no traffic. He’s going to tell you that you won’t make any money.

If you listen to him, he’ll be right.

You can 100% control the success you have to close out this year. Trust me, there are plenty of top performers out there that do not care what month it is. As a matter of fact, they are probably looking forward to the next two months because they know most of the others will be focused on the wrong thoughts, waiting for the “busy” months.

Approach every day with a plan, stick to it, and you will find that November and December can be two of the best months of the year.

Go close this year with a bang!