The summer is over. Your clients are back from vacation and are looking for ways to help their businesses finish strong in the fourth quarter of the year. Make the most of September by seizing new business opportunities. This issue of Promotional Consultant Today offers seven key strategies to help boost your sales.

1. Add 20 new "A" level prospects to your list and call them. An "A" level prospect is the person you most want as a new client. This person buys the right amount, at the right price, in the right time frame. Criteria for an "A" level prospect can include industry, size of company, department, level of decision maker and geography as well as the issues and challenges they face. To determine the makeup of your "A" level prospects, look at the makeup of your "A" level customers. Then, using that criteria, replicate the recipe.

2. Catch up with your current clients and upsell by offering incremental programs and add-on services. Capture "sweep-up dollars" from the "use it or lose it by year end" client budget. One sales director I know contacted one of his clients and said, "We have a really interesting program, and if you have any budget available for this year, I'd like to discuss the benefits of the program with you." That simple call resulted in a $100,000 sale. That's why I call it "sweep up dollars." The money is lying around and you sweep it up.

3. While you're talking with your current clients, ask for referrals to other departments, divisions, parent companies, sister companies and subsidiaries who have money they want to spend this year. Surprisingly, this low-lying fruit is often overlooked. Leveraging your relationships to capture all sales within any one company will quickly increase your earnings as well as solidify your position with your customers.

4. Look through your CRM and make a list of prospective decision makers you've met but have not yet sold. Projects can come off hold and prospects can misplace your contact information. Make the most of the time you've already invested in developing their business. Stay in touch with these prospects and be top-of-mind so when the dollars are on the table, you will be there to collect.

5. Look through your pending proposals and identify three strategy ideas which will move each proposal closer to a close. Choose the best one for each and execute.

6. Half-day hooray! Make calls after 2 pm on the Friday before Labor Day (two days from now), and you will catch those hard-to-reach decision-makers without their assistants answering the phone. On the day before a holiday, office staff often depart early, leaving your decision-maker at his or her desk, relaxed and ready for your call. Were you thinking of leaving early that day? So is your competition.

7. Prospect purge. Delete prospects who don't belong on your list. If they are not "A's", "B's" or "C's", they aren't worth your valuable time. This is true for referrals, as well. Just because you were given a referral doesn't mean you must make contact.

Implementing even a few of these key strategies can lead to a huge payoff this year. It may be tempting to set aside this article and move on to your next task. But can you really afford to forego this opportunity to develop new business? Take a moment, decide which strategies you will follow and set a time on your calendar to make them happen.

Source: Carolyn Kopp is chief door opener at Kopp Consulting, a company that has helped thousands of business owners and salespeople secure initial meetings with high- level decision makers in almost every major company including P&G, Pfizer, GE, Merck, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner, Kraft, Target, CBS and others.