Is it time… Have nots and…

Is it time… Already?

The leaves are just beginning to fall, Thanksgiving isn’t here yet, and even the department stores are only now starting to break out the Christmas displays. But is it time to start thinking about 2027? Notice we’re not saying budgeting for it but thinking about it.

Yep, it’s probably the right time to start pondering that subject. As we wind up this first month of the last quarter of 2026, we already have a pretty good feel for how this year will end – both in terms of our new business growth and the health of our existing accounts.

By knowing the year to date sales to our current customers the math is pretty easy to let us to forecast what the next year will deliver if we neither add nor lose any of that business.

Then we can start thinking about those current accounts where we can see opportunities to deepen our penetration. On the flip side we need to think about any that are less stable and who may be at risk of shrinking or even going away.

There’s still plenty of time to get into the details of next year’s plan but now might be the best opportunity to start laying the foundation for that task before the holidays, the weather and the year-end wrap-up rush conspire to crowd out the time we’ll need to do it.

Have nots and… getting them

File it under “roundtuit”. Yep, we’ll get around to taking that inventory of our tools, spares and all the essentials we carry in the van or trunk as soon as we get a chance. And of course we’ll immediately replenish whatever we find lacking. Uh huh. The fact is we really do intend to do both, but life has a way of getting in the way of doing either of those in a timely way.

But we also know that failing to address having what we need to function smoothly is a big mistake. So maybe the time to address that oversight is today. But perhaps the real starting point is to create a hard copy of that list that we can use as a quick reference to make that task simpler.

Then if we take maybe thirty minutes at the end of today, we’d be able to create a list of exactly what’s missing or nearly depleted. And by starting our day tomorrow, perhaps a half hour early, we’d have the time to fulfill that list. One thing’s certain. If we invest that time, we’re better off than losing a lot more than an hour later because we didn’t.

Okay, preaching to the choir time is over.