So far this spring and summer, Coshocton County has been completely overwhelmed by rain. What seemed like a wet spring, led to a night where the local town of West Lafayette reportedly got nearly 7 inches of rain in a few short hours. The already wet ground gave the water no place to go and the devastation was difficult to see. Areas that had never seen standing water in generations, were flooded. Basements were full of water and foundation walls collapsed.
In addition to the devastation in homes around the area, acres of farmland spent time underwater as well. As a matter of fact, some weeks later, some areas are still seeing the affects of this rain. It leaves many people in our area talking about the long term effects of the season to farmers. Many have not had the chance to plant their seeds.
There will be nothing to harvest this year.
I am reminded of this as I look at our summer sales season. For many organizations, July is a tough month for sales. The sales team will talk about the fact that July is the month of vacations. They will say that “no one wants to talk about xyz in July!” And let’s face it, often the sales team wants to take time off then as well! This combination of reasons leads to a continually disappointing summer selling season.
And though those factors certainly play a role, I don’t think they are the real reason that sales lag in the summer. It all comes back to a lack of seeds to harvest. My hypothesis is, for the last few months (for lots of reasons) fewer and fewer seeds were planted. It was probably a little at a time. There was not a giant flood in the sales team. That’s why it was hard to notice. But little by little, fewer calls here made.
That is why there is less to harvest today.
As much as we would love to imagine it, business rarely just falls from the sky. These opportunities are harvested after months and months of work. They come from the seeds that were planted.
The bad news is, you can’t just go in and harvest today if you have not planted the seeds. The good news is, you can get out in the fields and start planting.
Thanks for checking in! Make sure you never miss an update. You can find all of our content in one place at our blog here. We have video, podcasts and blogs. In addition, you can sign up to be a VIP! Do that here.
