23. Navigating December: Balancing Work and Holiday Stress For Sales Teams

In this episode, Britt discusses the unique challenges and opportunities of the holiday season in the workplace. We explore how December differs from other months, emphasizing the importance of maintaining momentum without causing burnout. Britt highlights the significance of cognitive load, customer response, and emotional energy during this time. Let's aim for a balanced approach to motivation, focusing on visibility, recognition, and belonging. The episode also explores the benefits of gamification and multi-round competitions for keeping sales teams engaged and productive.

Best Moments

• 00:00:00 Introduction to December Challenges
• 00:00:00 Cognitive Load and Customer Response
• 00:00:00 Emotional Energy and Motivation
• 00:00:00 The Role of Gamification
• 00:00:00 Multi-Round Competitions
• 00:00:00 Reflecting on Progress and Closing the Year

Creators and Guests

Host

Brittney Moseley

Go-To-Market Director

Producer

Ellen Young

Marketing Campaign Manager

What is From Pain Point to On Point: Transforming Sales Challenges into Wins?

'From Pain Point to On Point: Transforming Sales Challenges into Wins with Gamification' is the podcast where we dive deep into the common challenges sales managers face and explore innovative gamification solutions to overcome them. Hosted by SalesScreen’s Go-to-Market Director Brittney, every two weeks, we'll bring you expert insights, real-world stories, and actionable tips to help you turn your sales pain points into on-point victories.

Britt: 00:01

Hi everyone and welcome back to From Pain Point to OnPoint. I'm your host Britt and this is the last episode of twenty twenty five which is crazy to think And today we're gonna talk about one of the most interesting and oftentimes unpredictable times of the year, is the holiday season. December is a really weird mix of goals, slower customers, shifting schedules, people trying to wrap things up, people trying to check out, and managers kind of thinking, you know, how how do we keep moving along? How do we sustain momentum without burning anyone out? And this is an important conversation I think for us to have because how teams end the year has a huge effect on how they start the next one.

Britt: 00:50

And I think that what often can happen is that leaders are either going to push way too hard and it's going to cause burnout or they're going to completely back off. I think that both of those approaches can at times miss the mark. Today we're going to talk about why December is different from every other month. What motivates people this time of year, why small wins can help stabilize your performance in this crucial final month, to close the year with meaning and not more stress. If you've downloaded our holiday guide that we put out then you'll probably recognize some of these themes, but this episode is going to go really into the why and not just the what.

Britt: 01:32

So let's get going. December behaves differently from any other month. It's not a normal month. It never has been. I think we oftentimes treat December and even you could even potentially expand this to Q4 as a smaller, more compressed finale to the year, but really December has its own ecosystem if you will.

Britt: 01:56

There are three big things that I think shape it. The first thing is cognitive load. It overall just increases across the board for everyone. Right? People are wrapping up the quarter.

Britt: 02:11

They are wrapping up their year. They're juggling personal responsibilities, holiday, travel, family, celebrate. They're they're doing all of this stuff, and I think that even the most organized person can feel their bandwidth really shrinking. The second thing is that customers, and again dependent on the industry that you're in, but customers' responses can dip. That's not because they don't care it's because their worlds are looking just like yours.

Britt: 02:38

They're also dealing with scattered meetings, compressed deadlines, out of office time, family obligations, etc. The third thing that I think is important and I feel like oftentimes is really not talked about at all even though it's such an overwhelming theme of the holidays is that the emotional energy shifts and you, your team and your coworkers and your customers, you start to crave connection and warmth and reflection and meaning. People want closure. They want to feel proud of the work that they've done in the previous year, and they want to feel really prepared for what's getting ready to happen next year. And I think that means that the traditional, you know, push harder power through motivation that maybe a sales manager would leverage during the summer when people are on vacation and, you know, we really do need to keep momentum going.

Britt: 03:34

Maybe that just doesn't work, right? Like that doesn't it doesn't translate as well during the holidays because there's just so much more stuff that's going on. But I also think that the, like, let's just cruise until January also is not really the answer. What actually is going to work is structure but a specific kind of structure. We want structure that's going to be lightweight, energizing, intuitive, but really importantly and probably most importantly is that it's easy to rejoin after time away And this is where gamification can come in and can be incredibly helpful.

Britt: 04:07

But before we get into the mechanics of gamification, let's talk about motivation. And if you've been listening to this podcast for the past year then you don't need you can skip this section. I don't know how long this section is going to be when I record it but you can just skip ahead because you're a master in motivation already. But I would say that motivation in December isn't driven by intensity. It's driven by three things: visibility, recognition, and belonging.

Britt: 04:34

Visibility is really important because when things are really scattered and when deals start to slow down people need to be able to see their progress versus the outcome. Again, I say this is industry specific because there are absolutely industries where December goes off like gangbusters and you're just closing deals left and right. I come from the software industry and that kind of is how it works in software is that people are just trying to spend budget by the end of the year. But that does not translate to every industry. So I think it's really important that if you are in one of those industries in which you start to slow down towards the end of the year, having visibility into progress and to progressive milestones versus a final outcome is going to be massive for your team and for your team's morale.

Britt: 05:27

The second thing is going be recognition and we know that recognition is just so vitally important no matter what, no matter what time of year, whether it's December, it's March whether it's July it just doesn't make a difference. Recognition is and we talk about this all the time on the podcast it is it is a tool it is a lever it is something that you can use on your team to get results real results real productivity. And we know this because it's backed by decades of research. We know that public appreciation really has its highest impact during periods of emotional fatigue, which I think anybody could agree that December is definitely a time of emotional fatigue. You know, we're at the end of a marathon and it's fairly stressful.

Britt: 06:14

So having some small acknowledgments, even if it's not closing the big deal or whatever the case is, these small little public acknowledgments for your team is going to land with really disproportionate value. It's will be a really low lift on your end as a sales manager but it will have such an outcome on your team. The third thing that I think is really important is belonging. The holidays just naturally heighten our need for connection and team culture can be the stabilizer for when bandwidth starts to dip. December motivation is less about performance pressure and it's more about emotional anchoring.

Britt: 06:54

And I know that seems like this feels very therapy, but, it is. People want to feel supported not squeezed. They want to have clarity not chaos and the best system and the best structure is going to amplify progress consistency and connection not volume, urgency, or stress. Gamification often gets framed as just like making things fun, but during the holidays I think the most important role that gamification plays is making things manageable because it does a couple of important things. It breaks large goals into digestible actions.

Britt: 07:31

So you can't really rely on long sales cycles in December as you need short bursts and easy wins. And so that sometimes means you have to take your focus off of the ultimate outcome and you have to start looking at the steps that you're taking to get to that final outcome and really celebrating that. You also have to have these shared moments because your team is fragmented, not just you know maybe you're a team that is remote or hybrid or you've got a global team and people are all over the world that already creates this fragmentation but during the holidays it's even worse right because you've got people taking PTO you've got people traveling, maybe people that were in one time zone have traveled to a different time zone. You've just got a lot of balls in the air when it comes to trying to get people onto the same page. Having a daily stand up or a shared competition that you guys are all working on or even like a theme even just like a theme for the week that you can carry through meetings or presentations or anything like that so beneficial and so helpful for creating this feeling of community and cohesiveness when things are very hectic and chaotic.

Britt: 08:46

It also reinforces positive behavior over output, so gamification during the holidays is less focused on hitting a big number or getting a certain outcome. It's more about just keeping consistency. Let's just keep the heartbeat moving right like let's just make sure that we're still in in a groove as much of a groove as we can be. And then lastly I think it's something that we we really try to hammer home on the podcast is just that gamification works with and not against human psychology. It really supports and amplifies a lot of behaviors that we want to reinforce in our teams.

Britt: 09:30

Because when people are tired, small goals feel more attainable. And when people want connection, shared activities really make a difference. And when people need certainty in a time of chaos, structure is what they're craving is what they need. Leveraging gamification you're really giving the team a framework for momentum. So I want to give you guys this is ripped straight from the holiday guide.

Britt: 09:57

I want to give you guys an an idea. You can do this even without having sales screen. You don't need to have the sales screen platform to do it. That is setting up a multi round competition. You can absolutely do this without sales screen.

Britt: 10:13

But one of the ideas that we have in our guide, it's a ski themed multi round competition. And we're gonna talk about why this format works really well. So there are a couple of reasons why I really love a multi round competition during a time like this. The first being is that it creates multiple entry points, which is crucial when a team's attendance is uneven. So somebody who's been out for two days can still jump in.

Britt: 10:38

They can jump in either on the next round or they can, you know, try to quick fire, get in on the round that's closing out. Somebody who falls behind or maybe isn't there for the whole thing can still reset and still engage and participate without feeling discouraged. This is really effective because it aligns with cognitive pacing. So short rounds, short bursts of energy, this matches really well with December's kind of stop and go rhythm that find ourselves in. It also mimics natural motivational cycles.

Britt: 11:08

So humans don't stay motivated through long stretches. That's why we're never going to suggest you running a competition that goes a whole quarter. And that is even more important in a parent during the holiday season. You need to have some checkpoints in place and a multi round competition does just like just that. Another reason why multi round works really well is because it taps into a narrative psychology.

Britt: 11:33

So the format is creating progression. So you're going from like round one, round two, round three and that kind of feels like a story. It feels a little bit like chapters, right? And so if you start the chapter you kind of want to see how it ends. It's a really great way to encourage consistent participation.

Britt: 11:50

And then lastly I would say it reduces the pressure of falling behind and this is one of the biggest reasons why holiday competitions fail is that they're just too linear. Multi round format really levels the playing field over and over and over again because every round is an opportunity to be involved and be engaged and then ultimately the aggregate at the end can be what you decide the winner is. Even without our fancy competition format ski theme, it's so cute, little skiers coming down the hill. The underlying structure of multi round is a really powerful performance tool. It supports equity.

Britt: 12:27

It supports engagement and it supports reentry which we talked about that. We want people to feel like they can get back into the groove of things so this is a great competition to run not just during December but this is an excellent competition to run when you get back into the groove in January. I think another incredibly important part of success in December goes back to that idea of community is finding the meaning of it all. When your time is really strapped, when when you really do feel the deadline of the year closing in on you, that is a time in which you want every single second to be used wisely because your time is just so limited. Your reps and your team they don't just want tasks for the sake of for the sake of tasks.

Britt: 13:11

They don't want busy work. They want to be doing things that are moving the needle in a real way and whether that that happens in December or whether that happens in January is kind of dependent but I think everybody wants to have a sense that they're finishing the year strong. A way that sales leaders can facilitate that is by reflecting on progress, not just outcomes. I think that that's so important to helping build confidence. It's so important to have these kind of reflective moments where you can put the task to your team and say, you know, what were we really proud of this year?

Britt: 13:52

Or what can we do better next year. These are just great conversations and great questions to throw to the team on a fairly regular basis during December I would argue. Think that this isn't this doesn't have to be an end of year meeting where everybody puts in what they have to say. I think that this is something that should just be ongoing, baked into the culture of reflection and acknowledging progress. And, you know to that end I think it's really important that we're closing the loop on goals with our team.

Britt: 14:25

At the end of the year it just makes sense from a psychological standpoint to have closure. Even if you've got deals that are going into January I think it's really important even if you didn't hit everything it explains the why and it sets the stage for the next year and that's ultimately what this is all about. We want to set ourselves up for success in January when it's really hard to get back into the groove. You know, you just came off of holiday, you came off of travel, being with family, being unplugged, hopefully. And sometimes it, you know, sometimes it's really energizing for people depending.

Britt: 15:00

They can come back and they just want to hit the ground running. Then sometimes it takes people a little bit of time to get back into the groove of things. But we really want to try and maintain that consistency and that feeling of success so that when our teams do come back from the new year, it doesn't feel like we're starting cold. And that your teams have clarity on the game plan as they move into Q1. Having a really strong December is when you feel like your December was a warm up for the year coming ahead.

Britt: 15:33

Right? It's short, it's structured, it's steady, it's intentional. Intentional being very important here. So that's it. A short episode for you guys today, but, you know, I think the theme of this podcast episode is that we are running out of time.

Britt: 15:47

So don't wanna keep you guys too long. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening to this podcast, watching the clips, you know, on LinkedIn, watching the videos on YouTube. This has been really interesting for me. This is like a it's it's fun to be able to research and, like, put together these podcast episodes for you, I really hope that you get something from them. Shout out my team.

Britt: 16:10

Shout out my girl, Ellen, who edits all of our podcasts and puts them everywhere for us. This has just been a lot of fun and we're really excited to bring you really powerful and tactical and useful content for next year. We're gonna we're really going to we're gonna up the ante. It's gonna be really great. But anyway, thank you guys so much.

Britt: 16:32

I hope everybody has a really lovely, really relaxing, rejuvenating end of year and a very happy and a very safe new year. I'll see you next time. Bye, guys.