I always think of the first couple weeks of January as the slow climb out of the holiday hibernation we’ve all been in for the past month. It seems that by the time December days turn into double digits, businesses are already in full holiday mode, which culminates in two or three weeks of complete unproductivity.

Don’t get me wrong, I think we all need some downtime and a chance to recharge our batteries.  But too much downtime leads to a lethargy that’s hard to shake. Even if you’re coming out of the 2016 gate raring to go, odds are your customers are still going to be lagging behind. 

I have a suggestion to avoid losing that momentum. While everyone else is still catching up, why not stimulate some new sales through some old channels?

You know that it’s easiest to make new revenue from your existing customers. Believe it or not, the next group of people that should be easiest to sell to are your former clients. Not all of them, of course. Some of them were a bad fit to begin with or were so difficult that your team practically cheered when they left. But the rest of them are fair game.

Make a list of the 10 clients you were most sorry to lose over the past few years. These should be the people or companies that you and your team really had a passion for serving and you still have the capacity and capabilities to do so.

This list should only include those customers you’d welcome back with open arms, both because of what they bring to you financially and from a work satisfaction point of view.

Now that you have your list, I want you to call each of them, before Monday, Jan. 18.  Reconnect. Humbly ask them to tell you why they left and push for them to be candid. When they finally start giving you some detail, keep probing. Ask more questions. Listen for what’s underneath what they’re saying. Your goal is to truly understand what happened and make sure they feel heard.

If it was your fault or they perceive it to be something you or your team did, apologize. Don’t offer excuses or explanations. Just apologize.

At this point, you have three choices, based on what you’ve learned.

1. Recognize that whatever caused the breach was so big that they’re never coming back. In that case, thank them for their past business and their candor, apologize again and say goodbye.

2. See that there’s an opportunity to win them back, but it’s going to require some preparation or some other legwork. In that case, tell them that you’d like the opportunity to re-earn their business and ask if you can contact them again in X days (however many days you believe you need to prep) to discuss it.

3. Seize the opportunity if you believe you can fix what was broken on the fly. Ask them for another chance and outline what you’re going to do differently this time that will make the partnership successful.

No matter which of the three is most appropriate, and even if you don’t win back a single client, you’ve still won. You will absolutely improve their perception of you and your company. You will have new intelligence so you can fix whatever caused their departure (because odds are, your existing clients are experiencing it too) and you’ve probably stopped any public or private grousing they may have been doing about you.

But I think you’ll have even better luck. By the time the rest of the world is ready to get back to work, you will probably have made a “new” sale or two.