It's early Monday on a perfect summa' morning as I head off for a two-week Vermont mountain-top retreat to first explore, then consider and finally plan out the next year or so looking toward the end of 2026.  The weather this summa' for me has been spectacular with a perfect balance of rain, sun and lots of heat, which I love.  

• I "wish" that the weather was like this every day even given that I'm an active snowboarder, and, therefore, winter has a key place for me.  I'm also now at the point in my life of complaining way too much about the commute from the NH beach to the Boston office or to Tufts in the wicked winta' weatha' that is only New England.  Ok, to complain, but I can't do anything about the weather!
• I "hope" that this upcoming Tufts semester of 36 newbies working with our 6 project companies will be as exciting and rewarding as was this last spring's semester, and that there won't be too many distractions caused by politics this semester's.  It's good to hope, but the reality is that politics will be politics, and senseless distractions will unfortunately occur.  
• I "want" our customers to have a very successful 2025 resulting in increased revenues and bottom line KPIs.   I also "want" my students to find their perfect jobs and internships.
  
  

On the other hand, as we kick off this first week of August, what I do know is that success in the world of Sales has nothing to do with "Wishing", "Hoping" or "Wanting"!  Unless we take action now-this first week of August-the probability of our sales success in what is always a difficult and complex month anyhow will be less than we had hoped for.

Results, Objectives & Actions

• You and I cannot plan results as hard as we might try.  I might as well "hope" for spectacular weather for the rest of August or, more importantly, I can only hope and pray for peace in the Middle East.  
• All of us as salespeople set objectives for specific months and quarters detailing the KPIs that we need in terms of the process steps that get us to revenue, deals, leads and whatever other metrics define success for ourselves and our companies.  Of course, it's always good to have objectives since they provide the guardrails that all of us as salespeople need to keep us on track
• Actions are the only planning activities that will make a difference in our achieving objectives which get to the results that we have agreed to.  It's in defining our specific actions where the rubber hits the road in detailed monthly and quarterly sales plans and specific sales playbooks.  We're all hoping that the Patriots will have a great season!  In reality, it's the quality of their players, their training, their playbooks and their coaching that will define their success.  

If you want to learn more about sales processes and tools that define actions and set you up for a successful September kickoff, connect with me.  Have a great week selling!

Take out a day in September to update your Sales playbook!

Think about taking a day out in September to work with us to tune up...or maybe actually write your first sales playbook. 

Our free how-to ebooks for general ideas: 

"Writing the Winning Sales Plan"
"Writing the Winning Business Plan"

We facilitate ideas on structure, models, process funnels, productivity tools and how to recruit, hire and onboard the best people.  We're real salesguys who continue to play and coach the game every day.  

Connect with me any time at jack@derbymanagement.com and let's discuss.