Mastering the Tides: 8 Steps for Managing Seasonal Sales Fluctuations

In the world of B2B sales, seasonality is a given. Sales teams feel it in the frantic surge at the end of a quarter, and the “all-hands-on-deck” push to close the fiscal year. These cycles are predictable, yet when left unmanaged, they can wreck forecast accuracy, burn out top sellers, and silently erode margins. But this volatility is not inevitable.

Managing the cycle of sales volatility

The end-of-period “hockey stick” is more than a sales cliché; it’s a well-documented reality that creates immense pressure. Research from Xactly has consistently shown a disproportionate number of deals closing in the final days of a period. In some SaaS examples, a staggering 50-60% of quarterly revenue lands in the last month, with a significant portion of that materializing in the final forty-eight hours. This last-minute scramble does not only create stress; it fosters an environment of continuous discounting and unpredictability.

This volatility directly impacts a business's ability to plan. When forecasting accuracy suffers—as it did for four in five sales and finance leaders who missed at least one forecast in 2024, according to Xactly and Yahoo Finance—it undercuts everything from strategic hiring to cash management. The issue is often compounded by internal misalignment. Varicent’s 2025 Market Spotlight revealed that companies lose a startling 6-15% of revenue to self-inflicted, normalized barriers. Leaders frequently point to gaps in territory design, quota setting, and sales enablement as a primary drain on performance. This disconnect is felt deeply by sellers, many of whom doubt their targets accurately reflect their territory’s potential. This skepticism, as noted by Xactly and Silicon UK, fuels a culture of last minute changes and adjustments that can undermine growth and have major impact on forecasting accuracy, perpetuating the very cycle leaders hope to break.

Mastering seasonality and optimizing performance

Turning this reactive cycle into a proactive strategy begins with a clear-eyed assessment and a commitment to disciplined approach to sales performance management (SPM). Here are eight steps to smoothing the revenue curve, elevating your team’s performance from reactive to strategic, and driving more revenue for your business.

 1. Quantify your seasonal curve (then plan around it)

This isn’t about guesswork; it’s about data. By building seasonal indices from 24-36 months of historical data—looking at closed-won deals, win rates, average selling price (ASP), and sales cycles by segment and region—you can map your true demand landscape. This allows you to flag known peaks and proactively shape targets, pipeline coverage, and enablement. Your forecast models should then evolve, blending these historical benchmarks with current pipeline signals, treating end-loaded closes as a risk factor to be managed, not a rescue plan to be relied upon.

2. Right-size quotas and timing

Using simply one static annual quota is no longer feasible. Instead, implement weighted monthly or quarterly pacing that mirrors your seasonal demand. Consider a dual-quota design; Varicent’s research found that 69% of account executives achieved 100% attainment with two quotas compared to just 38% with one. This approach, combined with quarterly territory-realism checks, ensures that quotas are seen as achievable and fair, fixing the root cause of sandbagging, not just treating the symptoms with SPIFFs.

3. Design incentives that smooth the curve – not spike it

To fight the hockey stick, deploy mid-period SPIFFs on strategic products, new logos, or multi-year terms, while tapering the end-of-period accelerators that implicitly reward unhealthy discounting. Spiff explains how introducing decelerators for excessive discounts and accelerators for early-period closes can effectively reshape seller behavior by pulling deals forward. Given that multipliers are common for higher-value deals, designing them to be season-aware is critical.

4. Ensure capacity and coverage for peak weeks

Of course, a plan is only as good as the team executing it. You must ensure you have the capacity and coverage to satisfy increased activity during peak weeks. This means mapping PTO, holiday schedules, new hire ramp profiles, and the bandwidth of your sales engineers and CSMs against your seasonal demand map. As Varicent recommends, linking capacity planning directly to realistic quotas and territory opportunity is key to avoiding the last-week pileups that put deals—and people—at risk.

5. Forecast with shared ownership

This operational rigor must extend to your forecasting with shared ownership between Sales and Finance. With forecast misses so widespread, Xactly’s 2024 benchmark underscores the need for tighter weekly consensus checkpoints, disciplined pipeline aging analysis, and realistic upside conversion assumptions. By instrumenting real-time pipeline hygiene and conversion pacing, leaders gain the visibility to intervene weeks—not hours—before the end of the quarter.

6. Create an execution rhythm that pulls revenue forward

Instead of waiting for deals to slip, be sure to create an execution rhythm. Run bi-weekly “pull-forward” reviews to identify at-risk opportunities, de-risk single-threaded deals, and swap last-minute discount offers for mid-period value propositions.

7. Reduce friction and dispute risk

Error-prone spreadsheet-based processes can lead to workarounds and "shadow accounting." Avoid poorly structured commission plans and instead enable real-time visibility that restores trust and focus. This allows you to coach where it counts.

8. Coach where it counts

Research highlights a persistent gap between the real-time, personalized coaching reps say they need, and what companies typically deliver. Closing that gap, especially in the weeks leading up to a peak period, is one of the most powerful levers for improving performance.

From volatility to predictability

Managing seasonal sales fluctuations is not about eliminating peaks and troughs altogether. It’s about transforming them into predictable, manageable cycles that fuel consistent growth. By quantifying demand, pacing quotas realistically, and motivating teams with data-driven incentives, organizations can shift from reactive fire drills to proactive revenue orchestration.

The data from Varicent, Xactly, and Spiff is clear: companies that align quotas with territory potential, tighten forecasting discipline, and create incentive transparency see higher attainment, healthier margins, and stronger seller trust. The takeaway is simple: seasonality will always exist, but volatility doesn’t have to. With the right mix of planning, incentives, and visibility, you can empower your teams to win—without the last-minute scramble.

Ready to modernize your sales operations? Get started with an SPM Transformation Assessment to help you evaluate your business drivers and develop an actionable roadmap for success.