John Linton ....though in this particular year - that's not saying much.
We rolled past our overall November revenue target yesterday which is always good to see in a tough year - though it was far from 'ambitious'. We still have a little way to go for the three remaining individual targets to be achieved but with three full days and a weekend to go I would have little doubt two of them will be achieved though I have my doubts about the third. In any event it is another tiny indication that business is slightly better now than it was over the previous four months of this financial year. I am not 'going overboard' about one month's apparent 'pick up' but at least it's better to have an on target month than a below target one.
The lack of 'Christmas Specials' hitting the residential markets so far is perhaps more important in signaling 'discount exhaustion' by the market destroyers and it will be very, very interesting to see their half year results early next year. Not that our half year results are going to be anything to write home about as we, like many others, have been on the receiving end of the market destroyer's give aways. It's far too early to tell and, of course, I have a very, very limited knowledge of what is actually happening but the 'straws in the wind' seem to indicate that things may be getting a little better - or at least not getting any worse.
Reaching the end of November so quickly means that there are precious few days to the end of this six month period and we have made little progress in revising our plans for the next six months which has now got only three weeks for us to complete. I keep changing my views on what I think the real opportunities are in the coming six months and I keep getting more confused as the days go by. I am still a little bewildered by the range and 'character' of the 'offers' we are receiving but I have stopped considering them in the context of what we are currently doing and what we are contemplating doing in the immediate future.
Our focus is on how we can more quickly build our business revenue, the products/services we need to do that and the types and numbers of personnel we need (and where/if we can find them). A key decision is, of course, do we appoint a Sales Director to take over the sales responsibilities I have carried since Exetel has existed (since it was first created some 20 years ago and over the past almost seven years of its current incarnation). November looks like it will be the best business sales month we have ever had but I have many concerns about the rate of progress we are making compared to what I had hoped for....though perhaps I was unreasonable in those expectations. We have had some interesting, and at least two very 'strong', applications for the Sales Director position and we should be in a position to make a decision by the end of next week.
A decision we also need to make is just how we use outbound sales based in Sri Lanka - our initial three weeks efforts have been very positive but, of course, we are only at the 'starting blocks' in terms of working out what we can really do. How we can use SL based personnel to help build business sales more quickly is going to be the real challenge and I don't think we are going to be in a position to make such decisions until sometime next year - but they really need to be made now. Overall the cleverer utilisation of SL resources is going to be very important to the Australian company over the coming six months....it is one significant advantage we have over all of our competitors.
A lot to think about.
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