The Keys to Fourth Quarter Sales Success in 2020

October 20, 2020
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

You’re probably going to hate this article! I’m going to show you that much of what is transpiring with the Pandemic could be having a greater impact than you realize relative to the future state of your business and you might not like what I have to say. As always, if you can hang in through some of the preliminary analysis, I’ll make the pivot to sales and business.

Each day, the Boston Globe sends an update with metrics that the state of Massachusetts is monitoring with regard to the Pandemic. The update for October 19, 2020, is shown below:

Notice that the death toll rose by 15.

Also notice that under “Related” the link to the article warning about gloom and doom over the next 6-12 weeks.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer tweeted this out today:

Back in May, when Massachusetts began reopening, there were between 10-20 deaths per day, and 100-200 new cases per day. Over the past 5 months, the number of new cases has risen by more than 100 each month to the 827 new cases reported today. However, during this entire 5 month period, the daily death toll has not exceeded 10-20, the same as it was back in May. See the two graphs in the next paragraph on media reporting.

Media Reporting – Unfortunately, most media outlets insist on reporting only the number of new cases, but don’t tell you that hospitalizations are down *dramatically* and deaths have remained steady after dropping to their current low levels. Check out the CDC’s own graph on hospitalization rates between week 10 (early March) and week 40 (early October):

You are reading this graph correctly. Even among those over 65, hospitalizations are down to just over 5% of those infected with Covid.

This is the latest graph of US deaths from Covid.

That’s right. Cases way up. Deaths way down. You should also check out this data on death counts – click on the graph to see the entire graph.

You read this table correctly too. The actual number of deaths did not significantly exceed the expected (normal) number of deaths. Does this mean that the largely elderly population with comorbidity, who died, might have died anyway? This video shows that the CDC’s own data shows that more than 100,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 were not COVID deaths!

If deaths and hospitalization rates are so low, despite cases continuing to increase, why isn’t the media sharing this great news?

After all, we all want good news, we all want to be more optimistic, and we all want the economy to thrive. What’s going on?

There can be only one answer. The media wants to continue making President Trump the villain so that he does not win reelection. If you don’t agree with that explanation then please explain why the media never shared any of these graphs and tables with you. Do you have a better explanation?

Impact on Business – The same media that is misleading you about the Pandemic is also telling us that we are in the midst of the worst economic recession in history, with more jobs lost than ever before, and it will become much worse. Of course, that’s not the case. Unemployment is down to just 7.9% and that’s with most of the travel, tourism and restaurant industries still shutdown or operating at very reduced capacity!

I participated in a government survey on the impact the Pandemic had on my small business and last week they sent a link to view the results. You can see the results for yourself here but I can save you a tremendous amount of time. I played around with the variables on the site, recorded my results and one thing became crystal clear. When I didn’t include states like California and Michigan, whose Governors are still trying to keep small businesses shuttered, and I didn’t include the two NAIC codes from the industries that were devastated, the rest of us have fared pretty well through the past 7 months! We’re doing OK! It’s important for us to know this fact in order to drive home a fantastic 4th quarter to salvage 2020.

Metrics – The pandemic has called attention to the fact that on a daily basis we are surrounded by key metrics for COVID-19. I can’t believe how many companies have still not identified the key metrics that will drive their sales results. There are either no metrics, the metrics are irrelevant or the metrics are backwards looking. It’s 2020. Forward looking metrics rule the day. Get with the program!

Tools – I read this article about the best Chrome Extensions for sellers. I don’t want to criticize the article because it’s an accurate list of great applications that you can start from within Chrome. However, the last thing your salespeople need right now is more tools. It’s noise. A distraction. Technology for the sake of technology. There are basic tools that every salesperson should be equipped with and everything else is completely unnecessary.

We’re trying to grow the economy all the way back and most of the information being pushed at us isn’t helping. We’ve come a long way since March and we can make even more progress in the fourth quarter if we keep our eye on the ball and don’t allow the fear-mongering, agenda-driven media to have their way, negatively influence the masses, and cause another slowdown or worse, shutdown. Here’s what the same Boston Globe sent out today, October 20, 2020.