Sales Tips for Holiday Season

Most everyone loves the holiday season, except for the majority of B2B salespeople. They worry about making quota and having enough to pay for the holiday bills, faced with prospects who are unavailable or give the old “we are holding off until the New Year to buy anything” objection.

Here are some sales tips for the holiday season that can keep sales activities going, and perhaps even produce record-breaking numbers, during a time when most people in sales just give up.

Get Busy

The tendency during the holidays is to assume that since people are taking time off, business will be dead. While yes, there will be issues with availability for appointments due to buyers traveling away from their offices, things really do not come to a complete standstill like in the old days.

For better or for worse, many choose to stay connected to their jobs via their smartphones, laptops and iPads throughout the holiday season, so to assume no one is reading your marketing emails or taking your calls is a mistake. In fact, since many other salespeople assume this, you have less competition during this time!

Here are some tactics to use:

• Call your prospects this week and find out if they can commit to a purchase now before the rest of the month gets too busy. Give them a big “end-of-year” discount if they do.
• Call existing customers and inquire as to whether there is any leftover budget for this year that you can help them get a better ROI on by investing in even more of your products or services. Again, offer a discount for these add-on orders.
• Stress to all that by committing now, they can hit the New Year running and have a better first quarter.

Get Creative

Now is the time to stand out and make a greater impression in the mind of buyers. B2C customers enjoy special perks and marketing tactics, and B2B customers should also enjoy some special attention. The key is to stand out.

Here are some creative sales tips for holiday season:

• When competitors in your area send Christmas cards; send Thanksgiving cards instead. You not only beat them to the punch by marketing earlier, you also differentiate yourself. Likewise, send Happy New Year’s cards after the first of January to start the year top-of-mind. All cards should have a hand-written note and signature, not just a pre-printed message, to maximize effectiveness.
• If you can afford it, buy little gifts for everyone in an office, not just the decision maker and his or her assistant. This can be made easy by investing in a couple of large gift baskets or chocolate boxes that everyone can share.
• Give away some cool freebies with every order, like inexpensive iPod Shuffles. Everyone likes free stuff, and offering them could be the deciding factor between getting the order or watching your competition walk away with it.
• Put together or commission some creative holiday media, such as infographics, YouTube videos, or even a custom video game.

Get Charitable

You can easily get in front of decision makers and other influential people around the holiday season if you get your company involved in charitable events. In addition to helping others, you will network with people in a festive, receptive mood, and portray your brand in a very positive light at the same time.

Some charitable sales tips for holiday season:

• Hold turkey drives for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• Go with your sales team to serve lunch to the homeless at a shelter
• Participate in a toy drive for children
• Go neighborhood caroling to raise money for a local charity
• Organize holiday care package collection and delivery overseas to our military personnel
• Host a charity fundraising gala

Make this year’s holiday season even merrier by increasing sales for you and your company! Start by contacting us here.