What High-Intent Buyers Do During the Holidays (And Why Sellers Miss It)

For B2B sales teams, the conventional wisdom is that business grinds to a halt in late December. Sellers wind down their outreach, assuming no one is listening. This is a profound and costly misunderstanding of buyer psychology. While transactional activity slows, strategic thinking accelerates. This article explores the asymmetry between what high-intent buyers do during the holidays and what most sellers fail to do.

The Myth of the Holiday Slowdown

The belief that "nothing happens during the holidays" is a seller-centric view of the world. It is true that fewer contracts are signed and fewer meetings are taken. But to assume this means buyers have stopped thinking is a critical error. The opposite is often true.

The quiet period of late December, when the frantic pace of Q4 has subsided, is one of the few times senior decision-makers have unstructured time to think. Their calendars are clear of tactical meetings, and their inboxes are quiet. This is not a time for vacation; it is a time for reflection and strategic planning.

While sellers are closing their laptops, serious buyers are opening their notebooks.

How Buyers Use the Quiet Period

High-intent buyers use this period to get ahead of the new year. They are not executing; they are planning. They are:

• Reviewing the Past Year: What worked? What didn’t? Where are the biggest gaps in their current strategy or tech stack?
• Shortlisting Potential Partners: They are quietly researching vendors, reading case studies, and creating a preliminary list of companies they want to engage with in January.
• Formulating Their 2026 Strategy: They are defining their key priorities and initiatives for the upcoming year.

The decisions that will shape their Q1 and Q2 spending are being made in the silence of late December.

The Asymmetry: Seller Silence vs. Buyer Planning

This creates a dangerous asymmetry. Just as buyers are at their most strategic, most sellers go completely dark. They stop their outreach, pause their campaigns, and disappear. By doing so, they miss the single greatest opportunity to influence a buyer's thinking before it becomes solidified.

A seller who maintains a thoughtful, non-intrusive presence during this period—perhaps by sharing a strategic year-in-review article or a predictions piece for the coming year—is not seen as an interruption. They are seen as a valuable contributor to the buyer's planning process. They earn mindshare while their competitors are on vacation.

The Takeaway

The sales process does not pause for the holidays; it simply changes form. It shifts from tactical execution to strategic consideration. Sellers who fail to understand this and go silent are forfeiting their chance to be part of the conversation when it matters most. They show up in January to a buyer whose mind is already made up, and their name is not on the list.