Each morning I usually start my day by looking at my calendar. Normally it is just a cursory view where I check to see what my first event of the day is and then look at what the rest of the day holds in store. This time though a chill ran up my spine for I noticed that a time of year that I fear every year has arrived, the month of July.
You see, each year I have high hopes for July. Business will be good. Merchants looking for merchant services will be eager to sign. Our team of sales professionals will keep up their marketing pace. However, each year as July ends I am sorely disappointed.
Although processing volume from existing merchants tends to grow, new production growth staggers along. By the end of the month, production is typically at the second lowest level of the year, coming in right behind December, It shouldn’t have to be this way.
It was 8 maybe 9 years ago when I became aware of this disturbing trend. At first I thought it was solely due to the Independence Day holiday, as it often fell in the middle of the week and resulted in one full lost week. So of course, production was generally lower.
However, even when it fell on a Monday or a Friday, July production still seemed to drop.
Over the years I have written blog posts about this phenomenon and included suggestions on how to overcome the slowdown.
Unfortunately though my suggestions don’t seem to help very much. That’s why this year I decided to try a different approach and instead asked my contacts at various credit card processing companies for their opinion of why July, well, stinks. Here are some of the responses that I received.
“It seems like a good time to take a break. The year is half over, the kids are home, and it’s been a good year. A vacation seems warranted.”
“No one else seems to be out working. I can be confident my merchants aren’t getting hammered with offers, so I usually use the month to catch up on a few things.”
“It’s too hot.”
“July is going to be slow, so I just accept it as a fact and make plans for August.”
All of these responses have one thing in common: they show that calls on prospects for credit card processing services either slow or drop off completely for a period of time. The result? All momentum built over the past three months disappears, and the time to recoup that momentum results in a slow start to August.
Yet when I asked if they would like some proven techniques that would improve their productivity in July, most said they probably wouldn’t use them. To me this means that they either find the July slowdown okay or they actually look at it as part of their typical business cycle.
I would like to note that there were two contrarians to these comments though.
“I have found over the past several years that July has been one of my better months. You know why? There’s no competition. I walk into a merchant and I am not the fifth, tenth, or twentieth merchant salesperon to walk in the door. They have more time and they listen.”
“July is the month when I can sign merchants without offering better rates. In fact, it’s a month when most merchants aren’t demanding cost savings because there isn’t some ‘salesperson’ out there making a bunch of bogus promises.”
Notice something? The common theme is that they find that there is less competition, but still a lot of business to be found. Without the competition they feel less pressure and are able to sign merchants with less difficulty.
It doesn’t matter how hot it is or if there are opportunities to take time off. Instead they save their vacation time for later. They leverage their momentum because they know that the merchants they sign will likely be more profitable and more loyal.
July still scares me since the majority of merchant services sales peope still seem to fall in the first group. However, for those that stay focused and persevere and seek sales tips from credit card processing companies, they will find success and happiness come August.
Happy Selling,
David
Payment Lynx Daily 