Half Time. What now?
At the start of the year, we all make a plan. Some of us write it down. Or put it in a deck and share it with the boss.
It’s now July. Half the year is behind us. The plan and the reality have had a chance to get acquainted. And in some cases, it hasn’t been a completely comfortable introduction.
Many of us will be looking forward to some time off and good weather over August. But if you’re anything like me, whether this becomes a restful break or a couple of weeks of pretending not to think about Q4 will depend entirely on one thing: where you are against your numbers.
I’ve had both summers. The ones where you switch off on day one because you know the year is in the bag. And the ones where you’re lying on a beach running deal scenarios in your head.
Whether you’re ahead or behind, there’s a lot that can be gained from taking the hiatus of a summer break to get some distance and some clarity on where your focus should be when September comes.
What We’ll be Doing Before Switching Off
At True & North, we aim to practise what we preach. But hand on heart, life sometimes gets in the way.
We had a moment earlier this year that made us strengthen our commitment. We were preparing a huge RFP for a bucket-list client, and we decided to pre-mortem the hell out of our response. Two of us, a stack of post-its, 20 minutes. Needless to say, we won the pitch.
So before we break for the summer, here’s what we’ll be doing inspired by what we teach – starting with the basics, before we get to the good stuff:
First, a reality check
Before any strategy, you need an honest picture of where you actually stand. Two questions worth sitting with before you close your laptop:
- Gap to goal – where are you now vs where you need to be in hard cold cash? Are you £50k away from your target or £5M? The size of the gap changes what you do next.
- What’s genuinely likely to close? Will your top of the pipeline deals get you to where you need to be or do you need to look further down to get there? A rule of thumb that’s served me well is to make sure you have three times your remaining target in live pipeline (calibrated by likelihood of closing). If you don’t, you need to build as well as close.
This is basic pipeline hygiene. It’s not glamorous, but it tells you where to focus. Time to get to work on the conversations that matter!
Start with Empathy
Reviewing spreadsheets very rarely changes the game. In our experience, your best route to short and long-term success is to put yourselves in your clients’ shoes. With our 2026 targets in mind, we will therefore take a moment to slow down and ask ourselves some crucial questions about the clients and prospects we are trying to reach. What has changed for them since January? What are they under pressure to solve now? Where are they investing and where are they pulling back?
Most people skip this step because it feels slow. It isn’t. It helps you identify where there’s real momentum and where things are about to stall.
Then think about your questions.
If we’re taking the time to really ‘get’ the client, we can’t open our post-summer conversations with generic questions like “how’s the business?”
In our workshops, we work on what we call Anchor Questions – the ones that lift a conversation out of business as usual and into a territory where opportunities can be created. When we teach this to client-facing teams, the shift is almost always the same. They come in thinking they have a pipeline problem. They leave realising they have a conversation problem — and that is a much more solvable thing.
Finally, get the story right.
When the holiday tan starts to fade, business picks up and you might end up face to face with your biggest opportunity sooner than you expect. Do you know the story you’d tell if you were seeing them tomorrow?
For proposals to land, they need to be built around what the client needs, not what we offer. Empathising unlocks real urgency and opportunities we hadn’t considered – we’ll take time to figure out how this affects the story we tell.
See you in September
If you’re ahead of where you need to be, now isn’t the time to come to a halt and assume that trajectory will continue. It’s still worth pausing and taking a moment to consider what is shifting for your clients as 2027 approaches. The teams that build long-term momentum are the ones that never stop meeting clients where they are – they prepare for what’s next and anticipate what could go wrong.
If you’re behind, the temptation is to push harder before you go. We understand the instinct — but volume without direction is just noise. And your clients can feel the difference between a thoughtful conversation and a desperate one. The most useful thing you can do is slow down, not speed up. Pick a handful of your best opportunities and check whether your current approach is built around their needs or around what you want to sell.
Whatever summer looks like for you, I hope you get some proper time away. Some of my clearest thinking has happened when I’ve stopped trying to force it, and my best insights often emerge when I’m nowhere near my desk.
Align your pipeline, your empathy, and your story now. Take the time to refocus, enjoy a well-earned break, and you’ll hit the ground running come September.
Thinking about what a strong 2027 looks like for your team?
September is one of the best moments to have that conversation — before the year-end rush closes in and planning becomes reactive.