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Cities Are Running Out of Salt Before Winter Even Starts
Road salt is one of those things nobody thinks about until plow trucks come back empty, and this year that's happening before the first snowfall. Some cities haven't gotten a single bid for winter supply, while others are paying nearly double last year's price.
North America doesn't mine enough of its own, which is why it ships in 8 to 10 million tonnes from places like Egypt and Chile, two weeks away by boat.
Atlas Salt (TSXV: SALT | OTCQX: SALQF) is building a mine in Newfoundland near a deepwater port where ships can reach Boston in three days. With salt, the real cost is in shipping, and CEO Nolan Peterson says the difference is so big that overseas producers could give their salt away and still come out more expensive than Atlas. The project is shovel-ready and projected to generate roughly C$188 million a year in free cash flow.
GM to the Top 1% ☕
Sunday evening, laptop open, the forecast tab staring back. I do this every week and I know you do too.
You count the deals. You count the days left in the quarter. And somewhere in the middle of it you notice that the number you are anxious about is not the pipeline. It is the pile of decisions nobody has made yet.
💡 Q4 IS A DECISION PROBLEM
Look at the five numbers from this week together. Only 37.1% of sales orgs grew quota attainment, even though 47.2% grew pipeline. 82.4% say losing to no decision is a challenge. 44% of top-quartile reps were given harder work after AI, against 12% at the bottom. 67% of buyers want to skip a seller for at least part of the purchase. And a typical buying network has 22 people in it.
None of these is about effort. Every one is about a decision. The buyer deciding to act. The seller deciding which work to hand to AI and which to keep. The seller deciding which part of the process is theirs. The champion deciding whether to take you to the other 21 people.
When a quarter slips, people say there was not enough pipeline. Usually the pipeline was fine. Nobody made the call.
The sellers who finish strong will not be the ones with the most activity. They will be the ones who force clear decisions early, on their side and on the buyer's side, and build everything else around those.
🔧 THE DECISION-FIRST SIX WEEKS
Four steps to plan the rest of the quarter around decisions. Takes 45 minutes tonight.
1. Name the buyer decision: For your top five deals, write one sentence: "[Buyer] has to decide [what] by [date] because [their cost of waiting]." If you cannot finish the sentence, that is the first task.
2. Name your own decision: Decide which two tasks you will give to AI this month and which one harder task you will take on with the hours it frees.
3. Cut one thing: Pick one account, one meeting series, or one report that gets your time and will not change your number. End it this week.
4. Put dates on every next step: Open each deal in your CRM and make sure the next step has a date and an owner on the buyer's side. A step without a date is a hope.
🎯 THIS WEEK'S HOMEWORK
Write the buyer decision sentence for your top five deals before Monday noon and send it to your manager. Then ask one question: which of these needs their help to force a decision?
❓ QUESTION OF THE DAY
Which deal on your forecast is waiting on a decision that nobody has actually asked the buyer to make?
Reply with the account type, not the name. I read every one.
See you tomorrow.
Edward
Founder, Morning Sales