10 Things To Consider As Part of Your Q3 Review

This year was expected to be unpredictable—and that’s exactly how it’s turned out. In this episode of Remodeling Mastery, industry advisor Mark Richardson talks about how, given the uncertainty of the first six months, it’s important to spend time during the third quarter reevaluating where you are and where you need to be by the end of the year. Here he offers 10 things to consider as you plan for the last half of this unpredictable year. 

Timestamps

1. Take inventory: 6:44
2. Know the numbers: 7:27
3. Rally the team: 9:28
4. Prioritize marketing: 10:50
5. Close it now: 12:45
6. Invest in sales training: 13:32
7. Encourage incentives: 14:50
8. Pivot: 15:45
9. Get ahead: 17:45
10. Position yourself for a strong 2025: 19:00

Partial Transcript

Mark Richardson:

This is a special edition of remodeling mastery that is titled Q three. Q three is quarter number three. Now needless to say many of the modeling mastery episodes, I try to make it really relevant obviously to the times we're in, but also general enough that it can apply, quite frankly, in terms of your success, anytime. Q3 however, in 2024, is a special moment of time. It's a time that we really need to look at a little bit differently than we have in the past. You know, when we came into 2024, we talked about this year being a year of uncertainty, uncertainty in terms of what was going on in the economy being an election year, uncertainty having come out of end of 2023, that some were up and some are down. But it's turned out to be a little bit uncertain. I'm not sure I'd say uncertainty was necessarily the right word. But it's certainly been a little bit Herky jerky. It certainly is. My friend Allison said, you know, it's been a little bit of a wonky year where companies have gone for two or three weeks, the phone not ringing at all. And then all of a sudden, there's a tidal wave for two or three weeks of leads-heavy sales in one month, light sales in the next month. So you know, we've seen overall, when I look back at all the companies in the first half of the year, there's about 20% of the companies that I work with, that not only have had good, but I'd say very good, or in some cases, record years, record years in 2024. What's interesting, there's about another 10 or 20%, that are having very, very poor years, and poor years, not only being below targets, but as much as 20 to 30% below what they targeted for 2024. And then obviously, in the middle, you've got a fairly large percentage that are doing I would say not necessarily good, but they're doing fine. There may be 5% ahead or 5% behind, but they're doing fine. But the bottom line is, those that are doing poorly are blaming it on the market, blaming it on the economy, blaming it on election year, blaming it on a lot of things that are out of their control, and those that are doing very, very well are taking credit themselves for what they're doing. They're focused very much on marketing, focused very much on sales, focused very much on operational kind of efficiencies and excellence. And they're seeing really, really good results. So as we think about this, Q3, I like to use analogies and metaphors to really try to understand I think, what's going on. And I think the reality is you went into the locker room. And again, whether you are ahead or behind in terms of the score in this football game is important. However, what's most important is coming out of the locker room, you realize that, you know, the second half of the year, the weather has changed the second half of the year, you maybe you've got an injured player, that's not going to be able to come back in. But the bottom line is that the Q3 and going into Q4 is going to be I think, very, very interesting and certainly different.

I was talking to some of my close friends at Google and they talked about 2024 being looked back in the rearview mirror as a year of acceptance. And I think that really resonated for me. I think, as I think about it in the middle of the summer here I accept it. And that is they've kind of accepted what's going on in terms of the economy, they accepted what's going on in terms of some of the little bit of COVID, sprinkling back in, they've accepted the fact quite frankly, while this is an election year, they're not thrilled about either one of the candidates that are coming into into play here. And the reality is, even my Republican friends, a high majority of them don't necessarily want their candidate to be in. Similarly on the Democrat side. So you've got a dynamic in terms of the election that we thought was going to be so so disruptive, that in many ways, at least in the first half of the year, kind of disrupted and certainly was was leveling itself out a bit. However, as we move now to the into Q3, now that Biden has stepped out, we've got a new change that's happening out there. It has at least an opportunity to be much more disruptive, much more disruptive like we thought it would be at the beginning of the year, and not necessarily the same. So one of the things I've found on a very high level or global level is Q4 in any year has a tendency to be unpredictable. Q4 could be great. Or it could be awful, I would say this year, expect it to be unpredictable and unpredictable is like you don't know whether it's going to rain that day, therefore you bring an umbrella. Unpredictable is you prepare defensively. So that professional leaves nothing to chance. Now I certainly don't wish to for Q4 is going to be weak here. But whatever quarter, what I do know for sure is if you have a great Q3, if you pile on a great first half the year or you catch up to what you fallen short, in the first half of the year, you're gonna go into Q4 with a much healthier stable business than you would if in fact, you're expecting and hoping and wanting Q4 to be good and to make up ground or to have sales flow into Q4, like you thought or clients were promising and then they don't end up happening. So the following are some thoughts. Now, some of these are actions. Some of these are just kind of random thoughts. But what I want you to do more than anything, is I want you to think about Q3 And think about it now because we're already in Q3. And if you could just take a little bit of time, reflect on and come up with your own action plan. Certainly leverage this podcast if you feel that it's going to be appropriate for you. And I think you're going to see better outcome and better return. 

Okay, number one on my list is take inventory. Now is a good time to take inventory. Go back, take a look at all of your numbers, take inventory of your processes, take inventory of your people pick inventory of your product, are you putting the right amount of energy? Do you have a good theme or priorities for Q3 take inventory of where you are. Don't just, oh, we're in the middle of the sea in the middle of the year right now take inventory now. Now is the time to take inventory of what's working and what's not working. So that you can make the necessary tweaks that you need to do. 

Number two is really drill in deeper in terms of knowing your numbers. What I find in the different companies I'm working with, the numbers that they're looking at are shifting. And I think the sooner that you're seeing the shift, almost like a radar out there, the more likely you're going to be successful. So what I mean by that, look at your average ticket, go back trailing 12, are you seeing some shift in average ticket? Well, if you're seeing some nice significant shift in average ticket, maybe the lead flow that you need to get to that is going to be left How do you feel about the average ticket going up average sale going up, look at your close rates more careful. Look at your close rates on the individual basis. It might be time for example, if you've been on the fence on particular individuals, either to celebrate them or to move them along, this might be the time to do that, because you need to have your first a team on the field in Q3. And in going into Q4 gross profit margins. What's interesting, in some cases, gross profit margins are up. For some cases they're down. Why is that know why that is tightened, tighten it up, so that you can at least make sure that what you sell come in, it comes in at what you expect it to be. So don't give away money as you move into. But the bottom line is that you've got to know your numbers. Look at the probability a little bit in terms of sales, we have a tendency to always look at the glass half full, especially in sales. But look at the probability I always like to look at nothing gets more than 80% probability. And then it gets less and less and less depending on where it is in the process. So you need to look at the probability use those probability numbers to try to be a little bit more predictive in terms of what's happening in the future.

Number three, rally the team. Now you may be listening to this podcast, and you actually resonate because you're a leader of the company and you're more of a thinker, but I guarantee your team is not necessarily fully aligned with you. You really have to rally the team. You have to think about for example, what Q4 might be have discussions get alignment behind the team, that Q3 is a priority because if you make it a priority, and your team doesn't make it a priority, then it's going to be like pulling rocks up a mess. out to try to get really any action in as I talked to different companies out there, you know, this has been a tough year. This is absolutely been a tough year. And I've talked about this in earlier fraught podcasts why it's been a tough year. But as a result, I think in many cases, your people are tired, they're weary, they're looking forward to the time off in the summer. In many cases, someone just talking about, you know, I feel like people are looked grumpy right now, you know, well, if in fact, that's the case, then rallying the team is even more important. I've done several things on how to get your mojo back, go back and listen to some of those earlier podcasts. And you might be able to get a few tips and things out of that, I think that might help you...