Stop Selling for the Holidays?

April 18, 2025
Scott Pemberton

Business-to-business sellers can come up with all sorts of reasons their prospects and customers just don’t buy during the holidays. What happens? Sellers just stop selling. And why not? During the holidays everyone knows that buyers are . . .

  1. Getting ready  for the holidays. They’re too busy to listen to sellers–especially you.
  2. Celebrating  the holidays. They’re too busy to  meet  with sellers–especially you.
  3. Enjoying  the holidays and want to forget about business for a while. If they let you show them great products at great prices, you’ll remind them of the business they’re trying to forget and ruin their happy holiday mood. They would never allow that.

Do these complaints sound familiar? If they do because they’re coming from the mouths of your colleagues, put your hands over your ears fast. If they sound familiar because they’re coming from your mouth, pick up the phone fast and call a current account, a new prospect, or even you mother: Just be sure you stop telling yourself that buyers don’t buy during the holidays.

The only reason buyers don’t buy during the holidays is because sales “professionals” don’t ask them to buy.

Have you ever thought that maybe all those bad-news buyers are in a  good  mood that will be good for your business?

Or maybe, in addition to getting ready for the holidays, they’re getting ready to jump start the new year and your products are just what they’re looking for.

Or maybe, because business is “slow,” they have time on their hands and would talk to you for five minutes–or 60. After all, nobody else is trying to sell them anything and that means they’re not buying anything, right?

You get the picture, I hope. Don’t let the holiday jeers coming from your colleagues–or even from you–keep you from selling during the holidays. Buyers do buy during the holidays  if  you can identify problems your product can solve for them and persuade them of the value of your solution.

The Shot! And the Importance of Discovery

By Phil Krone, President • April 28, 2025
Asking the questions that give you the confidence you need to win in sales. 

How do they do it?

By Phil Krone, President • March 22, 2025
This faith-based not-for-profit achieves 40 percent year-over-year growth for 17 years by applying well-known business principles, one in particular. Why can so few businesses even dream of such growth?

B2B Selling vs. B2G Selling: What’s the difference?

By Phil Krone, President • February 17, 2025
Are you selling business to business or business to government or both? There are similarities but also differences that need to be recognized to optimize your results.

Small Assignment, Big Impact

By By Phil Krone, President • January 17, 2025
Last year after a talk I gave at the Small Business Expo on Business to Business Selling (B2B) , a woman asked for my card because she wanted to meet to tell me about her business and learn more about mine. When we eventually got together she shared that her start-up company’s goal was to console consumers who had suffered the loss of a loved one directly, as she had. But my talk had inspired a new idea: assist funeral homes to improve their services by showing more empathy to their customers who were struggling as she was. I sensed that my talk gave her confidence that, despite the challenges, her business could succeed. What I didn’t realize was that this small assignment for a start-up would eventually have such a big impact on her business as well as an industry. 

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Five: Vision Sets the Course

By Phillip Krone • December 18, 2024
To date we have covered the Sales, Information, Tactical, and Marketing Plan Levels. Although the fifth level is the last to be discussed, it is often what sets a business in motion when it is founded. Today we will illustrate marketing to support a vision by discussing two very successful businesses.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Four: Planning the Work, Working the Plan

By By Phil Krone, President • December 5, 2024
As a reminder, the Five Levels of Marketing are (1) Sales, (2) Information/Data/Analytics, (3) Tactical or Campaign, (4) Marketing or Program, and (5) Vision/Strategic. We’ve explored each of the first three levels in separate columns in August, September, and October. They are available on our website's Productive Insights collection.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Three: Tactical Sales Campaigns in the Field

By By Phil Krone, President • October 16, 2024
Using intelligence from prior levels leads to revenue-building sales campaigns on the ground in real time.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Two: Putting Data and Information to Work

By Phil Krone, President • September 16, 2024
Tracking key types of data each month provides insights that can build a highly productive marketing plan.

The Five Levels of Marketing

By Phil Krone, President • August 14, 2024
The Five Levels - Sales: Prospecting, qualifying, discovery, presentation, demonstration, proposal writing and closing; Information/Data/Analytics; Tactical or Campaign; Marketing or Program; Vision/Strategic

The Question That Leads to a Positive Decision (The Texas Hospital Story)

By Phil Krone, President • July 18, 2024
If you believe you have ADHD, you can be more successful by scheduling fewer first meetings and spending that time on more second and third meetings with qualified prospects. For our client, that meant cancelling half the medical CFO conventions his sales rep was planning to attend and investing more time following up with the CFO prospects he had already met. When your discovery is not productive, step back and restart at the point the discussion began to be about whose system is better. That’s an argument you are not going to win. Don’t waste years in prospect meetings in which you ask the same questions every time and get the same answers. Either decide that your product or service isn’t right for this prospect and move on—or broaden your discovery to find a need behind the need. In this hospital case, the hidden need was a fear that because no outside vendors had audited their system they might be in violation of regulations that an outsider would spot right away.
More Posts