It’s mid-December, and your training budget expires in two weeks. You know what’s coming next.
Someone in accounting will start sending urgent emails about “maximizing resource allocation.” Your colleague will order that project management software nobody asked for. Another team will buy ergonomic keyboards because they found them on sale.
Classic year-end use it or lose it situation.
But look around your office. Really look. One of your employees has been doing three people’s jobs since the restructuring. Another hasn’t taken a real vacation in eighteen months. Half your team is quietly wondering if they should start job hunting before things get worse.
They’ve carried your company through a challenging year. They’ve adapted to new systems, absorbed extra workload, and smiled through “we’re doing more with less” meetings. And now they’re watching you spend leftover money on a Nespresso instead of them.
So, what if you changed things up? What if those expiring dollars went toward the people who move your business forward day after day?
Five compelling reasons make the case that this is the right approach to take.
1. Your Budget Dies if You Don’t Use It
Finance teams have long memories when it comes to unused money. Leave training dollars on the table this year, and next year’s allocation gets slashed. “Well, you clearly didn’t need it last year, so…”
Your CFO isn’t being mean—they’re being logical. Empty budget lines look like waste. But spend that money on your team and document what happens next? Different story entirely.
When the finance team sees that your leadership training cut turnover by 30%, they stop questioning your budget requests. When your skills workshops improve project completion rates, suddenly you’re the smart department that knows how to invest.
The teams that show their training dollars actually moved the needle get rewarded with bigger budgets. The ones that let money expire get smaller allocations and awkward questions about whether they really need training funds at all.
2. Equipping Teams to Jo Close the Year Strong
December is a challenge. Your sales reps are chasing their biggest deals while getting hammered on price. Procurement teams are handling fifteen urgent contracts with vendors who know the clock is ticking.
Everyone’s desperate to close before budgets disappear, which means your people face their toughest negotiations when they’re already exhausted.
So invest the money now to train them and watch what happens. Your sales rep who used to cave on pricing learns to hold firm and still get the signature. Your procurement manager stops getting steamrolled by aggressive vendors and starts securing better terms.
And the best part? They don’t have to wait months to use these skills. That negotiation training pays off immediately when they walk into next week’s contract discussion. Those December deals that could make or break your year suddenly start going your way.
After all, research shows that companies that prioritize ongoing training see a 17% increase in productivity and as much as a 24% increase in profit margins.
3. Building Momentum for the New Year
According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, 83% of organizations said they planned to maintain or increase career-driven learning investments.
Who says you can’t do the same thing starting now?
Look, January is rough for everyone. We get it. Your team comes back from vacation foggy and spends half the month just getting back up to speed.
So invest in training them now to hit the ground running instead.
Your sales manager who learned new closing techniques in December will use them in her first January meeting instead of spending two weeks remembering how to sell again. Your project lead who picked up conflict resolution skills will be able to handle team disputes with ease while other departments are still figuring out their New Year goals.
Everyone else is dealing with post-holiday hangovers and trying to remember their passwords. Your people are already making progress on real work because they’re sharp and ready.
4. Maximizing ROI on Unused Funds
Those training dollars expire in two weeks. Right now, they’re doing absolutely nothing for you.
Your sales rep closes an $80,000 deal next month using negotiation skills he learned in December. Your customer success manager reduces churn by 15% after learning better retention techniques. Your procurement lead saves $30,000 on vendor contracts with stronger negotiation and persuasion tactics.
That unused $10,000 training budget just turned into real money, hitting your bottom line.
Compare that to letting the budget disappear while buying another project management tool nobody uses. Your accounting software won’t track the deals that never happened because your team lacked the skills to close them.
Training money keeps working long after you spend it. Your people carry those skills into every client conversation for the next five years.
5. Reinforcing Culture and Retention
Your best employees are getting hit up by recruiters every week. They see companies offering signing bonuses and remote work perks. And if they’re good, they know they have choices.
So what keeps them around? Simple. Culture. They stay where they feel valued.
When you spend leftover budget on training, your team sees it. You’re sending a message that their career growth matters to you. You’re putting money behind your “people are our greatest asset” poster in the break room.
But when they watch you buy random equipment instead of investing in their skills? The message is loud and clear: you see them as expenses to manage, not people to develop.
Replacing talent is expensive and painful. Finding someone new, training them, waiting for them to get up to speed takes months and costs more than that training budget ever would. Research shows that career development was the number one controllable reason employees left jobs (17.5%) in exit interviews, and the smartest companies know this.
That’s why they keep their best people by showing they care about their future.
December Decision, Years-Long Impact
Your training budget expires in a few weeks, whether you spend it wisely or blow it on things nobody needs. Six months from now, that fancy conference table will have coffee stains, and the new software will collect digital dust. But your people will still be using the negotiation skills they learned in December to close bigger deals and get better terms. Every conversation they have moving forward gets sharper because you made one good decision when it mattered.
Shapiro Negotiations Institute helps teams turn those expiring budget dollars into negotiation skills that stick long after the year ends. We’ve been training people to handle tough conversations, close better deals, and stop leaving money on the table for decades—whether through intensive workshops or high-impact keynote presentations that energize your entire organization. Your people negotiate every single day, from client contracts to vendor agreements to internal decisions. So, stop watching that budget disappear and start building skills that pay you back for years.
Contact us today to see how we can help you do just that.
Infographic Callout: Why Training Wins (Right Now)
Productivity & Profit
- +17% productivity with ongoing training
- Up to +24% higher profit margins
Investment Momentum
- 83% of organizations plan to maintain or increase career-driven learning spend
Turnover Risk
- #1 controllable reason people quit: career development
- Cited in 17.5% of exit interviews
Bottom line: Point your remaining budget at skill-building and career paths—small dollars now, outsized returns next quarter.
