The Scariest Email in Sales

The Scariest Email in Sales

“Can you explain how you are going to close an additional $200K in Q4, when your pipeline is 40% behind budget?”

The scariest email you will get this week is not from your IT department about a phishing scam.

It is from your VP of sales.

Some companies have their national sales meetings at the end of the year, while others have them at the beginning of the next.

Either way, conversations are happening about strategy, the market, and THE NUMBERS.

If your numbers are lower than forecast and budget, and your pipeline does not offer much hope, it is a terrifying place to be.

And the truly terrifying part?

It is not necessarily your fault.

The Reality

Q4 always slows down.

But THIS Q4 we are dealing with:

  • Tariffs are causing price increases and uncertainty (customers stalling)
  • Distributors merging (your contacts disappearing)
  • Dealers consolidating (fewer doors to knock on)
  • Everyone is fighting for the same shrinking pool of projects (hello, data centers)

But the board, the CEO, and your manager do not care about macro trends.

They care about YOUR numbers.

My Story

Here is what I learned when I was in those shoes.

It was March 2020.

COVID hit.

My entire LA territory shut down.

New to that market, I had very few relationships (read customer accounts), mounting pressure, and more importantly, my bills that needed paying (my base pay did not cover them).

Scary times in more ways than one.

I could not control the external circumstances.

But I COULD control three things:

What I Controlled

  • Where I was looking for projects (stopped chasing the obvious ones everyone else was fighting for)
  • How I was spending my time (killed the busywork, doubled down on what worked)

The Results

16 months later, I became the number one rep nationally.

$211K per month.

During the worst market in recent history.

Not because the market got better.

Because my SYSTEM got better.

The Truth

You cannot change tariffs.

You cannot stop mergers.

You cannot make Q4 busier.

But you CAN change where you are focusing your energy.

Take the Project Fluent Assessment (3 minutes, free).

It will show you exactly where you may be leaving money on the table, even in this market.

Then decide: keep doing what is not working, or get strategic.

The panic is real.

But paralysis will kill your number faster than tariffs will.

Happy Halloween.

Conclusion

The scariest thing is not the market. It is realizing you have been hunting in the wrong territory or with the wrong weapons all along.

Connect with me on LinkedIn for more insights like this.