Sales Opportunities in Q4 and Planning for 2009

Where Did The Days Go?

I remember those words from back in late summer of 1987, spoken with a wistful voice by a Navy Ensign on the bridge of a tiny minesweeper, the USS Esteem, MSO-438. I was doing my Youngster cruise (the short tour on a fleet vessel all Naval Academy midshipmen went on after Plebe year) and had been called by him to the bridge to look at a school of silver salmon the size of a football field flashing and glinting in the late afternoon sun as they jumped. He stood looking out at the salmon and the coast of Oregon for maybe five minutes, quiet. Then he said it again: "Where did the days go?"

In that case, he was wondering how he'd gone from the glory years as a Navy lax player to a dead-end billet (simple answer: too much glory, not enough studying).

I recalled him today as I sat writing in the Forrester quad, taking in what is turning out to be a gorgeous late summer in Cambridge. I realized that our ability to influence Q4 08 is rapidly coming to a close. Gone are the early days of Basho Technologies where we hit our numbers by leaning on valiant sales reps to hammer the phones until the eleventh hour, selling more training. Usually to existing customers. Now we have three products and two campaigns. We have seven reps and geographical territories. We have met new logo goals. The quota bogeys are bigger. The average contract values are going up.

Now we do something about which I until recently had only a faint idea: integrated marketing campaigns. I love integrated marketing. I love Product and Marketing setting common goals. I love Sales picking targets and our Open writers cranking out designed content. I love the feeling on a sales floor when a Basho Blitz kicks off and the SPIFF (something like a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue) sits on a table next to the scoreboard.

I love fourteen step plans to capture ten new Basho Open customers. I love it. (I am not turning into a marketing geek. I just love teams of motivated, nice people working together in ways everyone always assumes will fail -- watch Justin Sheehy patiently explain hash rings and ripple database buckets to a room full of marketing and sales people and you will know what I mean. And I love the feeling of a shared win.)

But my love has a terrible price -- I need to plan ahead. I imagine all my peers across the business world find themselves in a similar situation. Or if they don't, they are in for a big surprise.

Time flies. That slamming sound we will all hear in about three or four weeks: the window of opportunity. Q1 '09 planning begins in six weeks. Where did the days go, indeed!

(A hat tip to Renay, Cassie, Paula, and Scott, who together make integrated marketing an unexpectedly fun thing to do.)