Episode Details

Here’s the scenario that’s playing out in sales organizations everywhere right now: Your team fought through a brutal first half of the year, rallied momentum in the second half, crushed their numbers, and now they’re ready to coast through December.

That’s the exact situation Kyle Begbie, a regional sales director at Fuse HR Solutions in Ontario, Canada, brought to this week’s Ask Jeb. His team overcame massive market disruption, economic headwinds, and buyer hesitation to finish the year strong. Now he’s facing the most dangerous challenge of all: keeping that momentum alive through the holidays and into January.

If you’re nodding your head right now, you’re not alone. This is the point in the year where sales teams either set themselves up for a championship quarter or dig themselves into a hole that takes months to climb out of.

The Holiday Momentum Trap

Here’s what happened to Kyle’s team, and it’s probably happening to yours too: They worked incredibly hard through disruption and uncertainty. They pushed through discouragement when buyers were putting deals on hold. They ground it out for months to get back on track.

And now they’re exhausted.

The holidays are here. Christmas music is playing. Everyone wants to take their foot off the accelerator and coast a little bit. This is why December and January are the most dangerous months for sales professionals.

Here’s the deal: Nothing really changed in the market from the first half of the year to the second half. Kyle’s team faced the exact same headwinds, the same economic conditions, the same buyer concerns. The only thing that changed was what they believed.

Once they believed they could win, they kept winning. And once buyers realized nothing was going to change and all of this was permanent, they got on with business.

But here’s the problem: If you take your foot off the accelerator now, you’re going to pay for it in January and February. That’s not motivation speak. That’s math.

The 30-Day Rule Will Make or Break Your Q1

The 30-day rule is simple: The prospecting you do in any given 30-day period pays off over the next 90 days.

This is especially true in industries like staffing, but it applies to every sales role. If your team takes December off and doesn’t prospect, you’re going to have a catastrophic January and February. It’s that simple.

So the number one thing you need to do as a sales leader right now is get structure around prospecting. Every morning, your team needs to run their call blocks. They need to run their sequences. They need to go through the entire process, and that cannot stop.

The only way you’re going to lead this is from the front. Whether your team is dispersed or in the office, you need to be running prospecting blocks with them every single day all the way through the holidays. If you do that, you’re going to be golden.

Close What’s Closable Before January 1

The second critical action is closing every deal in your pipeline that’s actually closable right now.

Your customers are thinking they have time. Your salespeople are thinking they have time. Nobody’s pushing anybody. But here’s the reality: If those deals roll over past Christmas into the New Year, the likelihood of closing them is almost zero. You’re essentially starting all over again.

Sit down with all your salespeople right now and walk through their pipeline. Identify every single deal where everything is lined up. Fit, budget, need, authority. Ev