Yes, I'm asking about January in July.

You don't have to have your budget set.  You don't need to know your January sales quota.

But at this point in the year, you probably have a reasonable idea of how you'll finish 2010.  Especially if you work in a recurring-revenue business, you have a good idea of expected 2010 revenue and margin. 

So what's ahead for next year?  What's your 2011 revenue and profit goal?  What do you want market share to look like?  And how the heck are you going to get there?

The answer is probably a shift, acceleration or full change to your current strategy.  Not just sales & marketing, but overall go-to-market.  New products, new markets, new partnerships.  Some of these may require new people, new processes, shifts in how you do business today.

That's a lot of new, a lot of potential change, and certainly a lot of things to figure out.  And when you hit January 1, it had better be figured out or you're already behind.

I'm not trying to scare you.  You have plenty of time.  Just get started now.

If you're selling a solution, and you get right to explaining exactly what you do at the start of a sales call or marketing message, you're being direct.  You're telling the prospect exactly what you sell and what it does.

Or are you?  You're describing the product or service, but not necessarily the context.  You're making the solution clear, but without knowing or understanding how it'll be used, how it'll be valued, whether it's even needed.

So if you start a prospect conversation by offering outcomes, by generating interest initially not based on what you sell but what you enable, is that being vague?  Or is it even more direct and useful for the prospect?

I don't care about what you're selling unless (or until) I need it.  I don't need it unless it solves a problem, or delivers an outcome I've prioritized.  I don't really want to buy what you're selling.  I want to buy what it unlocks, what it enables.

What I'm selling isn't a secret.  But I don't want to waste your time describing it unless you need the outcome it represents.

The problem I’ve always had with sales funnels is that they’re completely inaccurate.  What gets qualified and converted at the bottom of the funnel is by no means everything you’re going to get from the opportunities and/or leads that start at the top.  It may be what you get most quickly, this month or quarter, but it’s just the beginning.

For every qualified and ready-to-buy lead you generate, you likely also meet 3-5 qualified but not-ready-to-buy leads.  In a traditional sales funnel, you ignore these and go for the right-now sale.  But we’ve seen again and again that those 3-5 other leads are going to buy…eventually.  You want them to buy from you, so you need a strategy to stay in touch and engage them more actively when they’re ready.  The funnel doesn’t allow for that.  So at minimum, the traditional sales funnel is far too narrow.

Traditional sales funnels also only reflect half of the story.  What about repeat purchases?  Referrals?  Word-of-mouth opportunities that turn one sale into four?  That first sale may be the narrow part of the funnel, but if you know what you’re doing it widens again significantly from there.  Renewals, repeat purchases, referrals, etc.

Flip the funnel on its side and you’re getting somewhere.  Worry today about how much you can naturally drive through the middle of the bowtie for immediate closed business, but put even more focus long-term on expanding each end of the bowtie.  That’s the trick to long-term revenue leverage, and it’s likely a far better way of managing current and future sales.

If every week was a four-day workweek, I bet you’d still have plenty of time to get your job done.  How do I know this?  Because you’ll do it this week without a problem.

You’ll be in fewer meetings than a typical week.  You’ll get fewer emails (how many did you really have yesterday?).  You’ll have less time until Friday afternoon but you’ll still find a way (proactively or reactively) to get the right things done and go home Friday night without the walls falling down.

I bet you could get everything and more done this week with just the 32 hours you have if you focus.  And if you can do it this week, why not do it every week?

You’ll always have plenty of work for as many hours as you put into your job.  The trick is to figure out how to succeed with the right amount of time.  The clock doesn’t define that, and a 9-5 Monday through Friday schedule doesn’t define that.   The work defines that, but more importantly you define that. 

See if you can start some new good habits in this shortened week around prioritization, focus and results-oriented output.

If I ran a bath & body shop, I’d probably market hard to men.

I wouldn’t create products for men.  But I’d work hard to get them to come and buy from my shop.  I’d make it super-easy for them to delight their wives, girlfriends, daughters, sisters, mothers and other important women in their lives.

I’d launch a wish list that my female customers could fill out and keep on file (both at the store and online) so that men could come in, see what they want, and make an easy selection.  Easy.   Done. 

Men know that the important women in their lives use and want this stuff, but have no idea how to shop for it.  They’re intimidated by the sheer thought of walking into such a store. 

Make it easy for them, demonstrate that you can offer a quick translation and quicker purchase that’s guaranteed to be a winner, and you just made a regular customer.

The most obvious customer for a bath & body shop would be women.  But think about who buys for the buyer.  That segment is typically far less tended, there’s typically far less competition to reach them, and they’re far more likely to engage and respond when you talk to them.

We've been blessed with some awesome clients, projects and experiences so far in 2010, with more opportunities awaiting us in the months ahead. And in order for us to help more businesses accelerate their sales & revenue growth, we need world-class people to get them there.

So we're hiring. Right now we're looking for 1-2 people to join the team. Do you know people we should talk to? Are you one of them?

Here's what we want:

• Marketers passionate about driving real, measurable revenue results
• High-integrity individuals who treat their client's business as their own
• People who are both analytical and creative, with a bias for action, that focus on results over activities
• Individuals who enjoy a challenge, who want to learn and innovate on a daily basis, and are comfortable with change
• Smart, hard workers who know that everything, sooner or later, is measured by its impact on sales, revenue and customer growth

If this sounds like you, or someone you know, I want to hear from you (or them). Send me an email with a resume and/or LinkedIn profile, but also tell me (in a few short sentences) why you reflect or resonate with the statements above.