Close strong, kick off stronger: 5 strategies for successful fiscal year transitions

Managing the end of one fiscal year and the start of another is a juggling act. GTM organizations have to close late-stage deals, source and start new conversations, and analyze past deal performance to drive continuous improvement. All the while, leaders need to start planning the change management initiatives and tech stack changes necessary to set the tone for an even better new fiscal year.

It’s a lot – and it has to be navigated well in order to hit numbers and move the business forward.  

So, we’re sharing our top five tactics and resources to help you succeed as you transition from one fiscal year to the next.

Consistently hitting – or exceeding – revenue targets is the lifeblood of the business, but doing so is easier said than done. To successfully push deals across the finish line, reps must accurately anticipate risks, follow up with relevant and timely next steps, and manage multiple conversations simultaneously.

Here are six proven strategies to help your teams drive more revenue.

Download this EOQ preparedness kit to get more in-depth guidance, templates, and how-tos.

Getting prospects to sign on the dotted line can feel like an uphill battle. Today’s sellers have to contend with challenging economic conditions, longer sale cycles, increased competition, and more decision-makers.

So, we put together a guide with advice on how to seal the deal. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the most important closing dos and don’ts for reps.

Do	Don’t
Know your customer: Build trust by doing your research – don’t make assumptions.	Talk more than you listen: Focus on the prospect’s needs.
Identify the decision maker: Know who needs to sign and what steps will get you to the finish line.	Push too hard or too fast: Carefully time your conversations to discuss the right topics at the right time during the buyer’s journey.
Address outstanding objections: Prepare for potential buyer pushback.	Fail to ask for the purchase: Be clear, confident, and direct.
Rely on your executive team: Use executive sponsors to boost credibility.

Get the closing techniques guide to learn how to close more deals and how AI can help.

To drive success in the new fiscal year, you can’t repeat past mistakes. But disparate data and systems make it challenging to identify what went wrong and where you need to course correct. Thankfully, you can use revenue AI to pinpoint what worked well and what didn’t to pivot as necessary.

Stacey Justice, VP of GTM Enablement at Gong, leverages Gong’s Revenue AI Platform to aggregate deal data and identify areas of improvement. Specifically, she uses Initiative Boards to track sales methodology (MEDDICC) adoption across the field and by team.

Using this information, she can easily identify where sellers need additional training (the paper process) and create materials to help move more deals forward in the new year.

Check out Stacey’s blog post to learn how we use Gong to analyze deal performance and sales methodology adoption, and how you can too.

Predictability hinges on consistency. To drive success, GTM teams must have repeatable processes in place. But knowing how to track and monitor performance isn’t always easy. 

Here’s how you can create a winning operating rhythm in three steps.

Clarify the activities in your operating rhythm on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.Turn that list into a shareable calendar and assign roles to each activity. Incorporate AI so you can easily access data, make more informed decisions, and get your questions answered.

Download the operating rhythm guide to learn how to build a more effective operating rhythm. 

While the end of fiscal year represents a concrete moment of change, change is constant in growing organizations – new people join the team, your team adopts additional tech, roles evolve, and GTM strategy shifts. Relying on a CRM to manage these changes is ineffective because data becomes stale and outdated quickly.

Revenue AI platforms can help you manage change more effectively and gain a competitive advantage. Using revenue AI platforms, like Gong, you can:

Identify if your team is prepared to embrace new technology and realize the value of an AI-driven solution with our AI readiness assessment.

The end of the fiscal year and start of a new year can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. By leveraging revenue AI platforms, like Gong, GTM teams can make more informed decisions and pave the way for sustainable growth in the new year. 

Today, revenue leaders at organizations like Snowflake, Dropbox, and LinkedIn use Gong to capture customer interactions, anticipate deal risks, and gain insights into strategic initiatives, ultimately streamlining how their GTM organizations operate  and driving more pipeline.  

Get a demo to learn how to create a more predictable revenue engine.