Planting Seeds Today

planting seeds today

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.

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Written by: Kirby Hasseman

Kirby Hasseman is the CEO of Hasseman Marketing & Communications. Kirby hosts a weekly Web show called Delivering Marketing Joy where he interviews business leaders from around the country. Kirby has published four books. His most recent is “Fan of Happy.” His book, called "Delivering Marketing Joy" is about doing “promo right” and is perfect for people in the industry and customers. He also wrote “Think Big For Small Business” and “Give Your Way to Success. All are available on Amazon.