Make December Your Launch Pad, Not Your Letdown

Create focus, finish strong, and take care of future you.

Is December your business slowdown... or your launchpad?

In this episode, Kristi and Kelcie flip the real estate holiday narrative on its head. You’ll learn how to protect your pipeline and your peace—without overworking or disappearing on your family.

They walk you through their 5 Momentum Questions, lead follow-up strategies that feel natural during the holidays, and non-prospecting projects that make January smoother than ever.

🎯 You’ll learn:

• How to build your Q1 pipeline while staying present
• The 5–5–4 habit for easy daily productivity
• What your January-ready pipeline should include
• The “Holiday Hot List” framework
• How to schedule work and gingerbread-making time
• 7 non-sales projects that bless your future self
• A Take it and Run Challenge to help you implement fast

💡 Whether you’re wrapping gifts or cleaning up your CRM, this episode is your go-to playbook for ending strong and starting fast.

⚡️ TAKE IT & RUN CHALLENGE:

• Schedule two 90-min focus blocks
• Close one open project loop this week
• Have five meaningful convos that spark momentum

If this episode gave you an idea you can implement in your business, don’t just listen — take it and run.

🎤 Book me to speak at your event/team meeting: 
kristijencks.com

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https://www.youtube.com/@coachkristijencks

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@kristijencks

🎙️ About the Podcast

Take It and Run is the podcast for ambitious professionals—especially real estate agents—who want practical strategies they can implement immediately. Each episode delivers mindset shifts, frameworks, and real-world insights to help you move from thinking about it… to doing it.

Transcript

Kristi Jencks
Welcome back to Take It and Run. We have a super awesome podcast today. It's just Kelcie and I, and I don't even like to say it's just Kelcie and I, but Kelcie and I came together today because we want to talk about something that is going to help you start the new year off at such a high level. Traditionally, I see a lot of agents get super distracted.

in December. December is the month of distraction. Actually, at the time of this recording, it's not even December and I already know that people are not working. I already know. But that's not you. That's not you at all. Our listeners, we know they are going to take action because the last thing that they want is to step into the new year with zero in their pipeline.

Kelcie Dowd (01:56.847)
Yeah, for some people it is.

Kelcie Dowd (02:12.718)
Yep. So today we're changing that typical narrative that agents have that of course our listeners don't have. But our purpose today is to help you stay productive, aligned and confident through the holidays and making sure that you can do all of this without sacrificing family time or losing pipeline momentum. So what we did was we took some of Kristi's most recent calls and we threw them all into AI and it

plugged and chugged away and it spat out the most common questions and concerns that agents that she's talking to right now are having because they're not alone. so what we did is we are gonna answer those questions today and just help you ensure that you hit January with that momentum already in motion.

Kristi Jencks (03:05.23)
Like I want you to think of December is not a slow down, right? And I'm also a realist. So I was telling Kelcie, it's like, I wanna tell you guys all, like if I could like put my hands on your shoulder, I'd say keep working. But that being said, like I have a big family, I have traditions, have holiday. December is my birthday month. So like I get it. I wanna have fun, I wanna have play and do all of those things. And I don't want to step into the new year

feeling behind. so December is really your launch pad and not your slow down. So that's what Kelcie and I are gonna do. We're gonna take you through these questions. We're gonna answer them for you and we're gonna give you some frameworks and some suggestions on how you can have the best of both worlds in December. You can have the family time, you can have the rest, you can have the recharge, you can get your projects in order and you can step into the new year confident that you're going to have closings. Cause we don't wanna go into 2026 with nothing.

on the books.

Kelcie Dowd (04:05.731)
No, we don't. All right, let's get into it. So question one, Kristi is most agents hit January at zero. What is the fundamental strategy for avoiding a slow start and building momentum during December?

Kristi Jencks (04:22.968)
I like that we're saying like build momentum in December. So again, this idea like we don't have to slow down what it's gonna mean. And if you've coached with me and we come into quarter four, one of the first things that we do every single time is I say, okay, hold on, get out your calendar. Get into your calendar, the days that you're gonna work and the days that you're gonna take off, right? So at the time that this is gonna be released, it's gonna be the first week in December. If you haven't already done this,

please, please, please, please do it. Because you're not dealing with 30, 31 days, right? Like you may only have 15 working days. And if you know that you only have 15 working days, that changes than thinking you have a whole month to get things done, right? And so the first thing is you want to pay attention. You want to pay attention to what you have on the schedule. What are your commitments? You know, we know that there's always gonna be a dance recital for our girls.

So that's gotta get into the calendar. We know that we always are gonna take Thanksgiving off, take it off, You know, put it out of your calendar. So pay attention and have less reactive moments. That's something that you really gotta remember. It doesn't have to be a slow down. It's just gonna look a little bit different. December looks a little bit different. So plan ahead. That's one of the most important strategies is plan ahead. What days am I working and what days am I taking off?

Having that kind of clarity is gonna give you the confidence to also know what you can commit to, right? Like maybe you should try to overhaul your entire CRM, redo your listing presentation, redo your buyer's presentation, and you've got foreclosings and your hosting, and, and, and, and, and, and if you only got 15 working days, how can we get the most out of those 15 working days?

Kelcie Dowd (06:13.647)
Yeah. And I really like how you mentioned that, like what that does for your confidence because you you think about how much it would tank your confidence if you at the end of, you know, in the middle of December realize, look at your to-do list and you're like, I haven't done any of that, but when have I had time? And, and oh my gosh, I'm such a loser. You know, there's some people out there who will spiral like that and you don't have to, and it really does come down to planning ahead.

Kristi Jencks (06:38.958)
Well, then you feel bad about yourself stepping into the new year. You feel behind, right? Like, my gosh, I got to catch up from the holidays. And that's not what you need from your mindset. It's not from a clarity standpoint. And so again, plan ahead, be intentional, pay attention to where your time is going.

Kelcie Dowd (06:59.875)
Yeah. All right. What daily or weekly check-ins should agents use to keep themselves focused and aligned during the holiday distractions?

Kristi Jencks (07:11.352)
This is gonna be a little bit of a longer answer, but I'm gonna point us to five questions I would be asking myself either every day or at least at the beginning of the week. Because again, let's go back to the first principles like plan ahead, right? If I know that I'm traveling this week and I only have two full working days or three full working days, then I'm not going to over commit. I have this thing where it's like, Kelcie knows this about me, I wake up really early.

Kelcie Dowd (07:25.57)
Mm-hmm.

Kristi Jencks (07:41.262)
and I don't hit snooze. So that's just one of the things I don't hit snooze. If my alarm clock is set for 5 a.m., I'm going to wake up at 5. Now, let's say that I went out to an event and I didn't get home until midnight or so. I may not set my alarm for 5 a.m. I'm going to look out and I'm going to say, oh, you know what, I'm actually going to be tired. I don't have to be up this early. Let's go ahead and set the alarm for 6. And that's just kind of, again, paying attention. So the first question I would ask myself is,

what outcome do I want this week? And you could ask yourself this from both personally and professionally, right? So going into Thanksgiving week, I had a couple really like intentional things I wanted personally to happen with my family, conversations that I wanted to happen, some certain things that I didn't want to happen and kind of laid the groundwork for that. But then also professionally, knowing what I needed to accomplish. In fact, this

Today is Friday, November 28th as we're recording this, so it's Black Friday. But I knew like Wednesday, I was so excited when I was done for the day because I had accomplished the things that I needed to do. And then here I am today, Friday. It's not going to be a full work day when we're done recording this podcast. I've got a couple things and then I'm out and I'm going to go spend the time with my mom. So, you know, what do I want to accomplish this week? Is that setting an appointment? Is that getting your Christmas presents wrapped? Is that

you know, connecting with three people intentionally. Just one, ask yourself, what do I want as an outcome for this week? The second one that I would ask is what task, if I completed it now, would make January easier, right? Like give yourself the blessing. Kelcie, I actually do not know this about you, so now I'm curious.

and you may not want to share, but are you the kind of person that takes the laundry out of the dryer, it and puts it away? Or are you the person that's like, I'll get to that later?

Kelcie Dowd (09:46.159)
That's a hard question to answer. If I could show you my living room loveseat right now, it would answer that question.

Kristi Jencks (09:57.87)
Okay, so you get it, but you get what I'm saying. There's things that we know. I always joked, and now I don't actually do laundry. My house manager does 99 % of the laundry. I'll be doing laundry tomorrow because she's not gonna be here, but 99 % of the laundry's not done by me. And when I was in charge of the laundry, one of the things I always said is the laundry has to be folded and put away before Monday. Because I knew.

Kelcie Dowd (10:00.122)
Yes.

Kristi Jencks (10:26.988)
as a mom of eight, going into the week, if we had a pile of laundry in the laundry room or on the couch or the loveseat or whatever, Like, the week was just gonna get more difficult. And that was one of those like fundamental things that future Kristi was gonna be so grateful that she took the time to fold and put the laundry away. in...

in real estate or in business, Kelcie, what do you see as some of these? What are things that agents should be thinking about doing now that's going to make January easier for them?

Kelcie Dowd (10:58.511)
I mean, I definitely think your business plan should have already be done. But to me, that's one of the first things is going into January, going into the new year, knowing what each month should look like. So that includes what we love is breaking it down quarterly, especially in terms of marketing. And you can just, with AI too, I mean, we were doing this before AI, but breaking it down, was like,

week by week and putting your people through rotations of terms of marketing by quarterly doing that. You're having clearing out your CRM to do's. Just clean up your CRM. Just don't go in there with 45 random to do's that you haven't looked at since July.

Kristi Jencks (11:53.614)
it's not 45. I guarantee you. In fact, I would be super curious and you guys can like drop it in the comments. How many pasty reminders do you have? Right? Like how many random tests? That's that is so deflating. I'm really glad that you brought that up. Your future self will absolutely be glad that you cleared all your pasty reminders in your CRM. Like just start the year off fresh. 100%. I love that.

Kelcie Dowd (12:16.525)
Yeah. Yeah. And you you said this a few times now and it's like convicting for me because I rarely think about my future self. I'm very much thinking about my now self. And I think that would be a really great Christmas present to give to me throughout the month of December is to think about my future self. So let that be a lesson to you all.

Kristi Jencks (12:42.286)
Right? But I mean, there, again, and that's actually, that's really the overarching theme of, we're giving our future self a gift. that's the second thing. The third thing would be, again, if we're thinking fundamentally to supercharge the new year and not have a slowdown, is I would love for you to start curating the list. Like, who are the people, the conversations you're having right now, they're like, yeah, we're thinking about in the spring or after the holidays, this,

call it your holiday hot list if you want to, but it should be up, yeah, holiday, who's-y-what-y. So, but this holiday list, what it is, is it's like, I want it up, I want it visual. Don't let it just live in your CRM. Yes, it should be in your CRM, they should be in stages, they should have all of that stuff, but this is something that's really gotta stay in front of you so that you can be intentional in the time that you are going to work.

Kelcie Dowd (13:14.969)
They hope you what he.

Kristi Jencks (13:39.61)
and it's easy for somebody to get lost in your CRM if you're also not having your daily follow-up. And again, my first choice is that you guys just continue to work. And I also know that people get distracted and December gets a little wonky. having this list of very clear of who are the people, the 20, 30 people most likely to buy or sell between now and February and have those people up in front of you.

The next thing I would do is, again, I'm not gonna pretend like everybody's working five, six days a week. And maybe they are, but it's not intentional. So they're wrapping presents and then they're making a call and then they're negotiating a deal. And also your deals don't stop, right? Your deals don't go on vacation because it's Thanksgiving or because it's Christmas. You still have deadlines and things like that. So remember that.

I would say this is where you have to figure out what are at a minimum two times. So I'm thinking at a minimum, their standard would be two focus blocks, 60 to 90 minutes of just like intentional work. So you look at your schedule ahead on a week like Thanksgiving, maybe you say, I'm gonna do that Monday, Tuesday, and if you like we're working today and so it's like Monday, Friday, but figure out what are two blocks uninterrupted

highly intentional, highly focused, where I'm not gonna be scrolling the newsfeed, I'm not gonna be just going and clearing out my email, but I'm giving my future self a gift of pipeline management or task, would be something. And then just build small ones, right? Like set realistic goals of what you need to do. So again, like if you've got family coming in,

then you need to be intentional and you say, know what, I'm gonna do this between six and seven a.m. because they're not up, we're not going shopping, we're not doing any of those things. Like you've gotta figure out when you're going to work because if you stop working, that's when it gets scary.

Kelcie Dowd (15:51.3)
Yeah, and that's the law of momentum, right? Something about something in motion stays in motion. And I thought too, just if you're somebody who gets overwhelmed by figuring out that 60 to 90 minutes of focused work, like, I know this happens to me where I know that there's, at least it feels like there's this.

laundry list of things I need to do, but when I'm like, okay, I'm going to sit down and write it all out and I write out two and I'm like, wait, was that it? Was that all I had to do? get, you know, getting it visual out in front of you really helps. But then also if you're a person who, you know, doesn't think that AI is the anti-Christ, you can use AI to brain dump and have it spit out, um, a plan for you.

So don't make it harder for yourself, the things that are already hard.

Kristi Jencks (16:58.306)
Christmas and one of the things that I had on my list of things that I wanted to do yesterday was I wanted to give the kids a packing list and I started and I was like this is dumb and I just went to AI and I gave it the itinerary and I asked it to create a packing list and it was so good I did a couple tweaks but chat jpt gave me a shot and I was able to complete that task in a fraction of the time

Versus if I had tried to just been like, how many underwear do they need? How many socks? How many, right? So I love that you said, like, think about bringing AI. Here's, you I've got 15 working days. You know, these are the, we're gonna talk about open loops here in a second, but these are the things that, you know, I really wanted to get accomplished. Help me, you know, maximize or optimize these, you know, 15, 90 minute blocks. And.

Kelcie Dowd (17:28.953)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristi Jencks (17:52.62)
and see what kind of itinerary and agenda it gives you and what you can realistically accomplish.

Kelcie Dowd (17:55.982)
Yeah. Be your holiday assistant.

All right, let's get into three. Kristi, how do I maintain lead follow-up consistency without seeming overly aggressive during the holidays?

Kristi Jencks (18:13.774)
Yeah, so December is not dead. It's just different. Like people need to remember. So much of this, Kelcie, I think is a mindset or like about December. Like, oh, I don't want to bother people. You know, nobody buys. Yeah. Oh my gosh. No, that is it's absolutely not true. It's just a different type of month. So again, some of these consistency and habits.

Kelcie Dowd (18:30.317)
Nobody wants to bug.

Kristi Jencks (18:42.456)
So maybe you work an eight hour day in a traditional setting. So let's say if a real estate agent is putting in a full day of work and it's eight hours, right? Maybe they're not doing eight hours because you've got extra commitments with the holidays and company and travel and all that kind of stuff. So maybe you're doing a fraction of that time. What should it look like? Well, one, it's just meaningful conversations.

If you go back to a Tom Ferry's 5-5-4, right? What's a 5-5-4? Five people you know, five people you don't know four lead follow-up. I would say even during December, you should be doing lead follow-up, but be intentional. Talk about, right? Like, and actually this idea that nobody buys and nobody sells in December is just not accurate at all. In fact, my sister is coming up on her one-year anniversary of when she purchased her home. They were going to wait until the new year.

And then we saw some of the deals that were happening with new construction. And even my daughter purchased a home this time last year, my sister and my daughter. It was not in their plan to purchase in December. When we saw the incentives, when we saw the opportunities, all of a sudden it was like, yeah, now is the time to buy a home. But that was just, and all it was was a simple conversation that was like.

Hey, if we could get you in with a 4.5 % interest rate, should we be looking at a home to get you in? And it changed everything. Those are the kind of conversations. Like I'm not sure if it's for you, Kelcie. Did you know X, Y, Z, right? Like some of those things, those kinds of conversations. So daily conversations, follow-up conversations, gratitude. my gosh, yesterday.

Kelcie Dowd (20:15.075)
Yeah.

Kristi Jencks (20:32.302)
I sent, you know, and shouldn't be Thanksgiving to do this, but I sent a bunch of gratitude texts and just things like that and it felt so good. Nobody was like, it's Thanksgiving. I can't believe you bothered me. Right? Like, no. One, I felt really great doing it and almost every time it was reciprocal. So what if, you know, what if the habit was that you do, you know, five gratitude touches, five just thinking about you.

five wishing you the best and can't wait to connect in 2026. Like that would be easy. So December's not dead. It's not even necessarily aggressive, but stay on top of listings that we do have on the market in December. Those people really want to sell the people who are looking at homes. They are super curious and they may be moving for relocation. They may be moving for,

Kelcie Dowd (21:06.692)
Yeah.

Kristi Jencks (21:26.926)
school zoning, all taxes, there's just so many different reasons. Staying in front of them with valuable information, it's not aggressive, change the mindset, it's not aggressive, it's just being intentional and getting, know, connecting with you and your timeline and making sure that we're looking at the same metrics because if we do find an incredible deal, if the perfect home pops up on the market, should we be going and looking at that on December 22nd? 100%.

Kelcie Dowd (21:29.071)
Mm-hmm.

Kelcie Dowd (21:55.118)
Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's crazy. I just realized too that some, my seven year home anniversary is January. It's like the first or second week in January. And so that means that like this, was almost an escrow this time of year, seven years ago, which was just, it's just crazy for me to think about that, you know? Yeah.

Kristi Jencks (22:22.456)
Seven years?

Kelcie Dowd (22:24.417)
Seven years. But.

Kelcie Dowd (22:31.457)
It didn't take away from my holiday to be in escrow or, with me being in a unique position as the buyer, but also the transaction coordinator. I didn't see it overhaul and disrupt Merrill's holiday either. Okay, so what...

Kristi Jencks (22:35.444)
Exactly.

Kristi Jencks (22:56.398)
There you go.

Kelcie Dowd (23:00.697)
Speaking of January, what should a strong pipeline look like before January 1st?

Kristi Jencks (23:07.598)
This one's really important because what it brings to light, these are the conversations that we're having with our coaching clients right now. So again, you mentioned your business plan should already be done. You should already know how many videos you're gonna be producing, how many reels, how many email newsletters, how many appointments you're going on, because those numbers are all tied back to.

your overarching closings, volume, GCI. And so what should your pipeline look like? Well, it really depends on your goal. But let's say that you want to close two deals in January and one of them's a buyer and one of them's a seller. Well, if my goal is to close those people in January, that means I should have four or more buyers signed right now out looking for the property. Right? So that number's a little bit hard.

and to just give a number here on the podcast of like, it should be X. Realistically, it depends on your overall goal, but here's some things to think about. How many people do you have pre-signed right now for listing appointments? How many buyers do you have agreements signed with so that you are working towards the house hunting?

How many nurture conversations where they are not going to be a December buyer, but they are a spring buyer and you're backwards mapping that timeframe. So you should already have in go mode for January, like the people that are going under contract in December. So those are your hot people that you have agreements with your active listings that you're trying to get sold. The point is, you should be working with people right now. That's how you have a strong January is that

Those are the people. You gotta remember, when you stop working, in real estate, your pipeline, the work that we do today, typically doesn't show up as a paycheck tomorrow. Even if I found someone today and got them under contract today, I wouldn't get paid today. It'd be 30 days from now, 45 days from now. And so the conversations that you're having right now are going to be those January, February, March closings. It's your strong Q1, so.

Kristi Jencks (25:22.83)
conversations on timeline, on needs, on expectations. If you know, again, we know here new construction is a really, really big one. They're giving all sort of incentives to get, you know, homes sold. We're seeing homes come off the market. And so the sellers that are there that are trying to make a, you know, tax reasons and, all the other reasons why people are moving right now, you just have to be there. So a super warmed up sphere.

knowing people's timelines, active conversations every single day, that's going to help you with a strong pipeline. Remember, pipelines expand and contract for people's own reasons. So you can't just say, I've got five buyers and my pipeline's good. No, that can fall apart really quickly because people change. you need, I've always felt like I want four signed buyers more than I want closings.

So if I want to close one buyer, I should have at least four signed that I'm out actively hunting, moving them through with the lender, all of that. Your conversion rate really does matter here. At the end of the day, you got to know your numbers. How many conversations per closing? How many appointments per closing? Those numbers will help you. So you probably should be looking at your 2025s. How many appointments did you go on? How many conversations did you have? That'll give you some numbers.

Kelcie Dowd (26:47.373)
Yeah. Man, I really feel like the theme for today ended up being like, take care of future you. And how, honestly, I think to be not just like successful in real estate, but to be level-headed in real estate. Because there's a lot of bugged out successful real estate agents that are just like,

still consumed with right now and everything, but they're hard workers, but they're not taking care of future them. So I just, feel like that's been a reoccurring theme with what we're talking about is take care of future you.

Okay, speaking of taking care of how as somebody who might worry about sacrificing family time this time of year for work, how would I balance momentum with being present?

Kristi Jencks (27:50.67)
And that's why I say I'm a realist when it comes to December. know December is gonna look different. It's gonna look different just like when my kids are out of school, my schedule looks a little bit different than when they're in school. My routine, my schedule changes. Heck, the world changes with the time change, right? It's like, feels like midnight at 5:30 because it's dark and cold and you know what mean? So.

Kelcie Dowd (28:13.07)
Thank

Kristi Jencks (28:16.942)
So the first thing is, let's go back to something we hit earlier. You should be planning ahead the days that you're going to work. And is it gonna be a full day? Is it gonna be a half day? And then don't just wing it. If you are gonna be working today, what did you want to get done? So those focus blocks, right? know, these focus blocks are something that's gonna be a blessing to you because you know, okay, I'm sitting down and I'm going to...

finalize my listing presentation. I'm sitting down, I'm gonna finalize my January marketing plan. I'm gonna make a decision, I'm gonna clean up a task, right? Like, I'm gonna make some phone calls. And so then, when you're not working, you're not working, right? Like, you know, yesterday was Thanksgiving and I wasn't making phone calls. I was doing text messages and gratitudes and things like that, which felt good to me and I wanted to do that in the moment. I also did that before my kids woke up and before my extended family came over.

Right? So it was something that I wanted to do. felt really good. I'm not going to be making calls on Christmas Day or even Christmas Eve, but are you working on the 26th? You've got to make that decision. And if you are, does that mean you're going to be making calls to clients? Meryl is out today. He's showing homes. You know what mean? He's out showing homes, working with clients today because that was part of his intention. We're here working today because we knew this was one of our working days.

Kelcie Dowd (29:19.161)
Mm.

Kristi Jencks (29:38.648)
to get things done. So having your focus blocks, knowing the days that you're gonna work, knowing the days you're not gonna work, and then I would be intentional. So again, if you've already mapped out when you're working, well, what are the family things that you're gonna do? Are we gonna go look at Christmas lights? We've got church on this day, we've got gingerbread making, we've got dance recitals. All of that stuff can go in your schedule. And when you're there, be there. Be present where you're at, don't be distracted.

your attention should be with where you are. And that's just actually really good practice. Your attention should be in what you're doing. So if it's a 90 minute focus block, be there. Don't be thinking about wrapping Christmas presents. Be where you're supposed to be. Do what you're supposed to do. And then when it comes time to make holiday cookies, you're not thinking about the newsletter that you didn't finish and having to pull out, know, different things like that.

Kelcie Dowd (30:21.604)
Right.

Kelcie Dowd (30:32.951)
Yeah, yeah. Well, because then you're reactive. Then you're just putting together something, you know, hoping that it works and then you don't like it and then you don't do it because you don't like it. Yeah, yeah. I started to think that like treat your your time blocks and treat your your family time like you would a first date in that you're not on your phone. You know, you're not like distracted. You're like giving that person your attention because you want to make a good first impression. Do that to your calendar.

Kristi Jencks (30:36.77)
Yes.

Kristi Jencks (30:41.559)
Exactly.

Kelcie Dowd (31:02.52)
When's last time your calendar was wine didn't dine?

Kristi Jencks (31:02.776)
good.

Kristi Jencks (31:08.808)
It should definitely be.

Kelcie Dowd (31:10.351)
Okay. What are some non-prospecting projects that agents can prioritize during this time to make January easier?

Kristi Jencks (31:27.306)
Yeah, so you mentioned one earlier and I think it's worth mentioning again, just CRM clean up. That's a great one. Refreshing your tools. I was thinking about our listing presentation. By the way, Kelcie, we need to do some updating on the listing presentation since Kelcie is the one that actually updates it. I was thinking, well, one, we have more sales. So you've got to update your number of sales. We've got new reviews.

But also we're using AI for our listings in ways that even two months ago we weren't. yeah, we're going to update the listing presentation. Now that doesn't mean a complete overhaul. We're talking a couple of pages that just need to be tweaked to go into 2026 with the strategies and the tactics that we're using now. So it could be refreshing your bios, right? Refresh your bios on Zillow and Fast Expert and Google.

Refresh and look over any of your statistics that need to be updated for 2026 in your buyer consultations your listing presentations definitely You should already have figured out at on a skeleton level q1 on a granular level January, right? Like we should know we're doing for YouTube videos. We're doing 15 blogs We're doing you know seven reels and two carousels and whatever it is that you you're doing those are

the things that you do in your focus blocks. Those are the non prospecting activities. The biggest thing is close those loops, right? Before you try to start 50 new projects for 2025, what did you remember when we had this like, we haven't used it in a while, but Kelcie and I had for a long time when we would do our marketing meetings, we always had the things that we were working on. And then we just had this idea bank.

And we would go back and it would be a, this is awesome, but not right now. We can't pull this into an active, you know, we can't pull this into an active place until we close the loop, right? When you have too many open loops. So I would be looking at this time is like, what loop can I close? What can I wrap a bow around, tie it and it's done. And yeah, you may iterate on it in February, but it's.

Kelcie Dowd (33:25.484)
Mm-hmm.

Kelcie Dowd (33:38.784)
Yeah.

Kristi Jencks (33:46.528)
It's good to go and it's not just this thing that's looming over you. So I'd be any uncompleted projects that are still important and worthy to move forward, finish them.

Kelcie Dowd (33:57.912)
I love that. Put a bow on it. Okay, so we're going to finish up with our take it and run call to action for everybody. It's a bit of a question, but the answer will be an opportunity for agents to take something and run with. So what are the three highest level actions an agent can commit to right now to ignite their pipeline for January?

Kristi Jencks (34:03.074)
for December.

Kristi Jencks (34:28.642)
Yeah. So I think you said at some points, like a holiday momentum challenge. And I really liked that. so the first thing is follow a schedule. Don't be reactive to the craziness of the holiday season. Figure out when you're going to be working, when you're off and what you're going to do on those working blocks, right? How are you moving your business forward? The next thing is December's not dead.

conversations, conversations. In fact, I think it's easier. People are more open to just a, you I was thinking about you, how's the family? Go through those forward questions. Stay in flow. Have you ever read Ninja Selling? Stay in flow. It's easy to stay in flow. All of these great conversations. And let's also face it, like, December's a little bit more social anyways, so you're going to be in front of people. Be prepared to have great conversations.

and focus on gratitude for that in your conversations. It just feels good. And then close up those project loops. Close the loops on the projects. Bless your future self. Clean up your CRM, right? Like just, those would be the most important. So follow a schedule, have meaningful conversations every single day, and close down the projects that have just been looming and open.

Kelcie Dowd (35:35.939)
Yes.

Kelcie Dowd (35:49.667)
guess.

Kristi Jencks (35:50.604)
I mean, think about that. If you just focused on closing one loop a week in December, you could clear off your plate for projects and still make cookies and see holiday lights and watch Elf and Harry Potter marathon or whatever your holiday traditions are.

Kelcie Dowd (35:57.497)
Mm-hmm.

Kelcie Dowd (36:06.478)
And don't sleep on a voice note. know, like those can be, those take what, 20 seconds sometimes, maybe a minute if you're really crazy. But just don't make it harder for yourself. And if you don't have a schedule, first create a schedule and then follow it. Let your yeses be yeses. Okay, awesome.

Kristi Jencks (36:14.103)
Yes.

Kelcie Dowd (36:34.924)
So we hope that that answered some questions or some feelings that are looming over people that are maybe hard to admit. But as we wrap up today, just remember the core message is you don't need to grind through December. The stress of sacrificing family time for work is counterproductive because presence improves productivity. That's something that Kristi really mentioned a lot is being present. Instead of grinding, focus on implementing consistent.

intentional actions that simultaneously protect your pipeline and honor your family.

Kristi Jencks (37:11.502)
I mean, and you don't have to do it all, right? Like again, I'm not saying you need to work 40 hours a week, but you do need, again, your deals are not going on vacation. They're still gonna be there and you don't wanna have the stress. Your family still needs to pay the bills in January, right? Like that's not gonna change. So these simple strategies, just schedule those power blocks of time, be intentional.

you'll walk into January with confidence and clarity and not feel like hungover. Don't have a hangover in January. Use December as your launch pad. So we gave you the tools, we gave you the activities, the strategies. If you guys have questions, make sure you hit us up on Instagram or even via our email newsletter, the Take It and Run email newsletter.

Kelcie Dowd (37:45.403)
Ha ha.

Kristi Jencks (38:04.022)
We definitely respond to all of the questions. In fact, I love it when you guys respond to the newsletter, Kelcie and I really get a kick out of it, because one, then we know somebody's reading it. But two, it also is really nice to hear how you guys are implementing these things and how it's changing your business and helping you serve more people and serve your family and reach your goals. you have heard the strategies to help you have a breakthrough in December without grinding it out and have the quality of life you're looking for.

Kelcie Dowd (38:12.174)
Thank

Kristi Jencks (38:31.982)
You've got all the tools, now you just gotta take it and run.

Kelcie Dowd (38:35.714)
Bye guys.