Memorial Day and Summer Sale Excuses

“Lest we Forget”

This year we celebrate the 151st Memorial Day. A day to remember those who gave their lives in service to this country. What a great day indeed. If you want to read a great poem that inspired the wearing of a red poppy in honor of Memorial Day, you can read Flanders Field Here. It’s powerful.

Never forget.

Memorial Day is also the unofficial start to summer. Here in Wisconsin, where I live, we finally thawed out of a winter that never seemed to end. I can almost smell the grill roasting, the bonfire burning, and the mosquito spray spraying!

Summer is here, yippee!

As much fun as summer can be you’re going to be awfully tempted to kick back and relax.

Enjoying the dog days of summer.

Basking in the glow of the sun.

Coming in late, leaving early.

I get it. Coincidentally, it’s around this time of year that the summer sale excuses start rolling in...

“No one buys during the summer.”

“Everyone is on vacation.”

“Decisions don’t get made during the summer.”

And on and on the sales excuse train rolls. Choo Choo!

Let’s get real for a moment, you and I both know that’s some BS. Companies still have to operate, the lights need to stay on and the business world doesn’t come to a screeching halt just because of June 1. Your business doesn’t take a 90-day sabbatical. There’s still payroll to meet, timelines to keep, and deliverables to deliver.

Don’t let your sales come to a screeching halt.

Some may want to lay back and work on their tan. But summer is the perfect time to wage an all-out campaign against your competition and besiege your market. While they’re taking it easy, this is where you can dominate.

This is the time to be aggressive. This is the time to be bold. Don’t back down from summer. Instead, push the chips to the middle of the table and go all in stealing your competition’s lunch, and capitalizing on your market.

Summer will pass and a change of the seasons won’t be far behind (sad, I know). Whatever you do during these next 90 days will come back to you in abundance during September, October, November, December and into the new year. If you take the summer off, it will show. If you put in the work over the summer, it will show.

I’m always reminded of this when I think back to my old basketball days. I remember being an up and coming athlete trying to make an impact on our high school team. While basketball is a winter sport, there’s plenty of high school hoops happening across the nation during summer vacation.

Our coach would always say that what you do in the summer, shows up during the winter basketball season and that he would know if you practiced or if you didn’t. I took that to heart and spent my summers hitting every open gym and crisscrossing the state with my Dad in our conversion van playing in traveling tournaments and college camps.

My coach was right.What you do in the summer shows up during the winter season. My best seasons were when I put in the most work during the summer. When I took it easy during the summer, it showed.

It will show for you and for your sales if you take the summer off. So don’t give in to the dog days of summer. Double down, expect more from you and your team, and go further.

You can have the best summer of your career if you commit to making it happen.