4 Reasons You Shouldn't Stop Prospecting Over The Holidays

Raise your hand if your business slows down, or practically stops, over the holidays. You’re not alone! Many businesses opt to pause their prospecting over the holidays for that reason. But in doing so, you may be doing yourself and your business a disservice...

B2B companies specifically can benefit from continuing to prospect throughout the holidays. Here’s why:

1) Your prospects are starting to plan for next year

For many, December marks year-end. That means with the new year fast approaching, people are planning ahead. Many businesses are thinking about next year's budget as well, and setting aside budget for new software or services. With that in mind, this is a great time to start reaching out to prospects and key decision makers. This gives you a head start and a chance to stand out among competitors.

2) There is less competition

Like I mentioned earlier, you’re not the only one thinking about pausing your prospecting campaigns over the holidays --- your competition is also thinking that.

While competitors are taking time off over the holidays, you get a leg up and can reach out to prospects that haven’t talked to any competition yet. Speaking to prospects before the competition makes it easier to close them later.

3) Prospects are still checking social media, especially on mobile

Even if prospects are taking time off work over the holidays, they are definitely still checking social media from their mobile device. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep your prospecting campaigns turned on, especially LinkedIn.  

In fact, the holidays are a perfect ‘in’ to send that first message to a prospect. A simple ‘happy holidays’ is all it takes to start a conversation, or re-engage with someone. For more messaging tips, check out this blog.

4) Prospects have annual goals to meet, and budget to spend

In addition to prospects beginning to allocate budget for next year, they may also still have budget remaining for this year. In many cases, this budget has to be spent before the end of the year.

As the end of the year approaches, your prospects are scrambling to finish up projects to meet the year-end deadline and use up what budget they have left for the year. This is a great time for you to pitch your product or service as prospects are looking for new channels that will help them meet their annual revenue goals, as well as spend their budget. They might even decide to pay upfront to use up this budget, while not actually on-boarding until the new year.

While the holidays may seem like a slow period, it doesn’t have to be! Hopefully this blog has given you some ideas on how to continue prospecting over the holidays and finish the year strong.