Selling during the holidays can be extremely profitable. However, it can be a difficult endeavour-buyers are taking time off to spend with their family so it’s hard to reach them and many of them are putting off any big purchasing decisions until the new year. What’s more, sales people aren’t totally focused on the job-they’re just counting down the days until they can take that well-deserved time off to celebrate. Though trying to sell during the holidays takes a little more effort and creativity, the rewards can be outstanding.

Here’s how to sell during the holidays.

Self-Discipline

It’s easy to let your mind wander off with the holidays. You’re planning trips to see family, you’re planning parties, and you’re planning activities to do during your time off. However, you still need to sell during the holidays, so it’s time to get your mind back on track.

If you’re not contacting, pitching, and closing during this time your quota will suffer, not only for the month of December, but for the first few months of the new year, too. Reduced selling activity and productivity can really affect future deals because you’re not contacting prospects, generating leads, or nurturing relationships to set up sales calls for the new year. You’ll be scrambling when January comes along.

In order to stop your self-discipline from slipping, get out your daily planner and plan your sales activities ahead of time-then stick to it. You might have to work around reduced hours and closure dates, but the rest of your work days in the month of December should be totally packed with calls, demos, research, and meetings. Stay on track, accomplish daily goals and sell, no matter how much you might want to slack off.

Stay at Work

It might be tempting to take time off in December, but if you’ve closed up shop, you could be missing many sales opportunities. You should stay at work and sell. Your competitors will likely be closed or reducing their business hours, and this gives you an advantage to excel at customer service and meet customers’ needs when you’re open and your competition is closed. Send out an email blitz right before the holidays to let your clients know you’ll still be available to help and are able to fill orders.

Entice

If your buyers are giving you the runaround during the holidays and telling you they won’t be making decisions until the new year, you still need to try to sell to them anyways. Chances are, once January comes around, they’ll have forgotten about you and your deal will never close. You might have to put in more effort to sell, include bonuses or value-added services, or reduce your price, but all of these enticing offers might just land you the deal instead of losing it.

Nurture

If no one’s buying and you just can’t sell during the holidays, then you have the perfect opportunity to nurture relationships. It’s a great time to send out holiday cards to existing customers to thank them for their business or to warm up cold leads with a little personalized touch. An e-card or snail mail holiday card can provide your clients and prospects with a nice memento of you, so they’ll remember you once they get back to work. If you’re still nurturing during the holidays, you’ll have a better chance to sell and close deals in the new year.

As much as many people would hope, business doesn’t stop during the holiday. Quotas still need to be achieved and sales people still need to sell. Keep your self-discipline in check with a well-prepared December schedule, give out enticing offers to close more sales, nurture relationships and warm up cold leads with holiday cards, and keep working while your competitors are closed so you can show clients that you can still meet their needs.