I recently ran a poll asking a simple question: Is your team starting to scope out next year’s roadmap yet, or are you heads-down on current campaigns?
It yielded a whopping five votes (lol). Clearly, I’m not going to give up my day job to become an influencer anytime soon. But looking past my micro-sample size revealed two truths about how B2B organisations operate as Q4 approaches:
- The sole “Scoping Out” vote came from Sales (my husband, who naturally had to support the poll, or else!).
- The four “Heads-Down” votes came from Marketers (my brilliant TiC colleagues who are deep in the execution trenches).
This isn’t just a funny split; it highlights a classic B2B tension: sales (or the husband) is already looking ahead to Q1 pipeline, whilst Marketing (my colleagues) is carrying the heavy operational load of bringing Q4 across the line. Let’s be honest (and yes, I am 100% biased), marketers add massive value, but they are often victims of their own success.
Whilst Sales reps can pivot their focus to next quarter’s prospects, marketers are still trying to manage and maximise live campaigns, nurture active leads, optimise conversions right up to December 31st.
However, when marketing is forced to keep its head down in Q4 execution, planning for next year gets squeezed into December’s leftover time. When that happens, marketing risks building Q1 campaigns around general brand positioning while sales is hearing urgent, unaddressed pain points on demo calls, leaving sales teams to enter January without the fresh case studies, targeted landing pages, or pitch decks needed to close early-stage deals.
And because even the best-designed campaigns take weeks to gain traction, a strategy squeezed into November won’t yield qualified opportunities until spring.
How to Give Marketing the Breathing Room to Plan Ahead
You don’t need 500 poll responses to recognise the pattern (well, that’s what I’m telling myself). If you want to show marketing’s strategic value on January 1st, you have to create space for early alignment now. My advice would be (and this is what I’m bringing clients through from September onwards):
1. Run Joint Q1 Target Reviews in Late Q3: Sit down with Sales leadership and ask: Which target accounts and sectors are you prioritising for early next year, and what content gaps are currently slowing down deals? Build your Q1 marketing strategy and output around those commercial priorities.
2. Audit High-Converting Content & Campaigns: Look back at year-to-date performance to see which specific content assets and channels generated actual closed-won business (not just leads). Lock in budget now to double down on those high-performing plays.
3. Co-Design the Sales Enablement Roadmap: Allocate dedicated marketing resources to build key sales collateral, one-sheets, product updates, and ROI calculators, so they are signed off and ready for the sales team to drop into conversations on day one of the new year.
So my five-person poll won’t be winning any awards for rigorous methodology, but it did highlight something very real. Marketers spend all day keeping the current machine running, which makes it far too easy to get swallowed up by the end-of-year rush.
If you want to hit January with real momentum alongside sales, you have to give yourselves permission to look up from the daily grind and start framing next year a little bit earlier.
If you need any help with auditing your year, speak to the team at ThinkinCircles.
