Mid-December, with a ton of advance planning, I left the normal work rhythm of the NH beach, the Boston office and the final exams of Tufts and retreated to the woods of Vermont to focus on long overdue projects, planning for our upcoming 2026 sales and strategy meetings, and, of course, preparing the house for Christmas.

With boxes and more boxes of ornaments and cascades of tangled strings of lights themed around various colors trucked over from the studio, the house becomes a somewhat chaotic and mildly disorganized process that somehow always ends up in the right space.  

• Agreements are reached on color themes, and, of course, the buying of even more lights.
• "discussions"' are resolved by merely buying more wreaths and garland to decorate the studio,
• The placing of decades-old ornaments is accompanied with repeated decades-old stories.

...and it somehow all works out...just as it does every year!

And then it's over, and although this is a real picture of my hauling the Christmas tree back to my woodlot where I cut it, it's also the last year that I did that.  Now I merely repack the Home Depot purchased tree and truck it back to the top floor of the studio. 

Beginning with today, it's time to get back to "the normal" rhythm of work schedules which usually follow the "the normal" rhythms of the seasons. My experience is that all of this process works as long as everything is planned for including the contingencies which we can't control whether that's the weather in Vermont or the business economy in our market.  What we always can do is work through a planning process focused on those strategies and those tactics which we can control!

Wishing everyone a well-planned and exciting 2026!  All of our prep work for our January 2026 strategy and sales planning meetings points to a very good year!

Now's THE Time to dive into your business planning for what lies ahead in 2026!

Think about taking a full day late this month to commit to the final details of your business and sales planning process for 2026. Here's our free how-to 2025 ebooks for a few ideas.  The 2026 editions are finished and will be available in our next blog. 

"Writing the Winning Sales Plan"
"Writing the Winning Business Plan"
"Writing the Winning Marketing Plan"
"The Marketing of Me"

We outline ideas on structure, models, process funnels, productivity tools and how to recruit, hire and onboard the best people.  A few hands-on guides for sales, marketing and business managers written by heavily experienced line managers with your titles and responsibilities.   

Connect with me any time at jack@derbymanagement.com and let's discuss your own 2026 planning!