It's easy to talk yourself into slowing down when the holidays come around. You've been working hard all year, prospects are probably on vacation, your colleagues in other parts of the company are taking it easy, and the eggnog is flowing in the lunch room. Well this is the perfect time to step it up.

Here are six reasons why you should buckle down, focus and end the year strong:

1. Other salespeople are taking it easy. This means that there are fewer competitors calling on your prospects. We all know what that means. Your call or email is more likely to get a response so it's a great time for reaching out to all those hard to reach prospects. 
2. Many companies operate with a "use it or lose it" approach to budgets. This means that some of your prospects may have money that they need to spend or risk losing that part of their budget for the year. I've never met a businessperson who wants a smaller budget to work with. Wouldn't you like to be the salesperson that calls on them at the time that they're trying to figure out how to spend that money? It won't be you if you're off shopping for gifts during an extended lunch break.
3. If you've already hit (or are close to hitting) your goal for the year, now is the perfect time to blow it way and make even more money. It feels great to end the year on a high note. 
4. You can build greater rapport with partners and prospects that are also working through the holidays. This can also mean that they might give you extra time on the phone or have that lunch that they couldn't seem to find the time for at other times during the year.
5. Look like a star. Your manager will see you pushing hard when your peers are slacking off. This can bode very well for promotions and discretionary bonuses.
6. This is the perfect time for doing some business planning so that you can set yourself up for a successful 2014. Think about how much you want to earn. Figure out what that means in sales that you need to produce. Break that number down in logical chunks that reflect the sales cycles of your industry or organization. That could mean 12 progressively larger numbers for each month of the year or maybe simply even numbers for each quarter. Make sure that you're aligning these numbers with your assigned sales goals. If you know your conversion rates for how many meetings results in closes, how many calls result in meetings and how many cold calls it takes to get a live one, then you can really get specific about what you need to be doing each day, week, and month to achieve the goal you set for yourself. This is a powerful way to approach your business and it will make you stand apart. 

Zigging when others are zagging is just more fun. Investors like Warren Buffet talk about doing the opposite of what most people are doing (read a great quote here). If other investors are staying away from the market because they're afraid, then there are great deals to be had. If everyone is investing in one stock, do something else because the price is inflated. Well, the same thinking applies here. You stand to make a ton more sales by not following the pack.  

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