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The "Holiday Micro-Sprint": How to Build 2026 Capabilities in 15 Minutes a Day

  • Writer: Guy Galon
    Guy Galon
  • Dec 27, 2025
  • 3 min read

If you have worked in Customer Success for as long as I have, you know the feeling of the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

It is a strange sort of limbo. No major client priorities. Your inbox slows down, your calendar is relatively empty, and you are left with a binary choice:

Shut down completely or try to catch up on a year’s worth of admin leftovers.


But after 20 years of experiencing customer breaks, I’ve found a third option. I call it the

Holiday Micro-Sprint.


This planned downtime is the perfect breeding ground for Micro-Learning. You don't need to read three business books this week.

You need 15 minutes a day to plant seeds that will bear fruit in Q1 2026.


Below are three specific, high-impact areas where you can build new capabilities right now. Not too demanding and won't burn you out.


1. The Tech Lever: Master One AI Workflow


The challenge: Moving away from using AI as a glorified email creator or a generic search engine.


The 2026 Shift: In 2026, the CSMs who attract more attention (and possibly get promoted) will be those who use AI to become more efficient and reclaim a significant % of their week.


Your Micro-Learning Task: Stop trying to "learn AI" broadly. Pick one repetitive task you did in 2025, such as summarizing QBR notes, drafting custom renewal emails, or analyzing churn feedback. Spend 15 minutes learning how to prompt an LLM to do that specific task 80% faster.


The Resource:

  • Read: 8 Best ChatGPT Prompts for Better Meeting Notes (by Claap)

  • The Drill: Don't just read it. Take a transcript from an old QBR, anonymize the client name, and run it through the "Executive Summary" prompt. Save that prompt in a text file. You should free up 30 to 60 minutes per QBR in the coming year.


2. The Value Lever: The "CFO Perspective."


The challenge: We are excellent at building relationships with champions, but we often struggle with "commercial fluency." We speak the language of adoption, but the people signing our renewal checks talk the language of finance.


The 2026 Shift: Next year, shift from reporting usage stats and start connecting your product to the client’s business outcome and bottom line.


Your Micro-Learning Task: Spend 10 minutes reading one article on a core financial metric from a Finance perspective—not a CS perspective. Understand what keeps a CFO up at night.


The Resources:

  • Net Dollar Retention (NDR): Read this breakdown by Wall Street Prep. Note that they view NDR as a valuation metric, not just a health score. This piece should broaden your perspective on the impact of NDR on both vendors and their clients.

  • EBITDA: Read this guide by the Corporate Finance Institute. This explains why companies can be "growing" and still slashing budgets as they are not profitable.


3. The Influence Lever: Leading With Storytelling


The challenge: Data is useless without a narrative. Too many QBRs focus on ticket analysis and features used. That is a status update, not a strategy session.


The 2026 Shift: You must evolve from a "reporter of stats" to a strategic influencer. Whether you are emailing a busy executive, sharing new insights, or pitching a new idea to your own Product team, you need to drive decisions.


Your Micro-Learning Task: Learn the "structure" of a persuasive presentation.

The Resource:

The Coach's “Corner”

Don't overwhelm yourself. The goal here is Micro-Learning, not a boot camp.

  1. December 28: Tackle the AI prompt.

  2. December 29: Read the NDR article.

  3. December 30: Watch the TED Talk over coffee.

Small habits beat intensity every time. Let’s make 2026 the year of high-impact precision, not just high-effort busy work.


Happy Holidays, and happy learning.

 

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