If this summer has taught me anything, it’s that you can maintain strong marketing and sales activity even when you or your office gets very busy with customer demands. Maybe I’ve been short a newsletter or two in the last couple of months but I’ve managed to maintain rigorous social media marketing and networking activity along with a little paid advertising. The best part is that outdoor summer fun hasn’t been compromised and business goal benchmarks are right on track.

The Sales Yoyo: A common marketing/selling cycle looks something like this: Business is slow so new business with current and new clients becomes the top priority. The sales team revs up prospecting, follow up and closing activities while marketing scrapes together the resources for a campaign surge and executes it. Lo and behold, a few months later the shop or office is humming! It’s all hands on deck to satisfy customers’ needs and keep them happy. Meanwhile, salespeople become a bit complacent, enjoying the recent business surge and marketing resources are shifted to help meet other administrative costs. The inevitable business slowdown follows from the lack of new business prospecting and reduced marketing communications. The anxiety of drying revenues starts this stressful up-and-down cycle all over again…

Steady as She Goes…: Steady, manageable business growth results from maintaining good value delivery to current customers and keeping firm consistency in your core messaging to your target audience. It’s not so much about the volume or frequency of impressions as it is about your messages themselves. Avoid the temptations to shift your messages toward perceived new opportunities. Stick with your core values – the business value that you can confidently promise to your customers as well as the human and cultural values that you and your team share and bring to work every day.

If you maintain consistency in your marketing and sales messages (with complete integrity), you’ll tend to attract new business that fits well and that you can better manage. Your clients will know they made the best choice.

Chuck Sink is principal at Chuck Sink Link, Contoocook, N.H.