Your Competition is Already on Break

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“People telling me to ‘circle back’ in January [when it’s November] make me so angry. I’m always polite about it, but I have to push myself to do business with them when the time comes.” 

I was looking back at some of my notes from meetings with people who were building, and this is one quote that stood out. He was an early employee at a successful startup that never really stopped pushing…and it ended up selling for over $500m. 

This guy wouldn’t lose out on anything by waiting and ‘circling back,’ but the company he was trying to do business with had lost his respect. That just wasn’t how he operated. He felt deeply that the company was either a dinosaur or just utterly unserious about its development because they checked out for the last two months of the year. Showing up, day after day, and trying hard is how his company got to where it was…and those two months of missed time and opportunity were holding them back. There is nothing high performers hate more than being restrained when they see a path to run. 

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I love it when I start seeing people posting their photos of travel or relaxing two months before the year ends—it’s like a holiday gift all its own, showing you the opportunity you now have. There are certain things that just start shutting down when Christmas lights start going up, and that time period holds tremendous opportunity if you’re hungry. While raising capital and some deals will have to be kicked into the new year because of the way *other people* operate—what can *you* do today? 

The thing I love about high performers is that they often do the opposite of what the rest of the world is doing, and it’s a strategic advantage. The last two months of the year are one of those moments. Let’s talk about how to use them to finish strong.