Pinch me... I must be dreaming

Today is the kind of day you dream about..... you hope for... but you know in reality, life is really not this good. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up at any moment, and yet, my hot flashes tell me I'm awake (because, of course, in good dreams, there are no hot flashes... that's what makes them so good!).

Here's how the day unfolded....

Well, never mind, to truly appreciate the day's events we have to go back in time a bit to the past weekend. Devin and I were looking at class enrollment and trying to decide what was going to happen for us financially. Yes, the business was picking up, but we still didn't have solid enrollment numbers in quite a few of our classes and the clock was ticking. I felt myself teetering on the edge of self-doubt and wondering if we were truly going to make it with this new business.

Now fast-forward to today. We woke up to a call from someone interested in our classes. She was wonderful and I talked her through the application process, our role, our classes, etc. It was just the early morning jump-start I needed.

Downstairs in the office, starting our day, I'm thrilled to see an email come across from a large pharmaceutical company seeking an on-site training program. I'm totally jazzed. I know the pharmaceutical industry and in fact, used to run drug trials for this very same company. They are big, they have lots of project managers, and they have money for training. We set up a call for next Tuesday and if the day ended with that, I would be thrilled. But it got better...

Based on a tip from an instructor who has used our course materials, I reached out to a gentleman that owns a training company. Technically, he is our competitor from a class perspective, but quite honestly, there's enough business to go around. I had sent him information about our courseware and he let me know he was interested and could I send him a copy. He followed that email up with an inquiry if we had any instructors available. Interestingly enough, it was a week I was open. I shot him back a proposal - use our course materials to pilot during that class and I would facilitate it for him at a discounted rate.

We talked on the phone shortly thereafter and hit it off immediately. He was northeast, so that of course helped! He loved our website and our business model. We talked about why we were different, what our philosophy is, etc. and he was sold. So I will piloting our materials in a class for him in a few weeks and then he's looking to switch over to our courseware.

This is a huge victory on a number of fronts. First of all, the materials they currently use come from a company that is run by a guy I don't really respect. He is one of those pompous in-your-face kind of guys and I love that a small mom-and-pop shop like ours is going to beat him out because of QUALITY! Secondly, the income from selling the courseware alone covers all of our expenses. Third, we are only a month into this new segment of business and it's growing so fast.

Now interestingly enough, prior to my conversation with him, I nudged Devin a bit regarding our Paris trip. We are doing a home exchange with a wonderful couple in Paris - and they've had their tickets for awhile. I tell him we really need to get our tickets soon - that's just not one of those trips that we should wait until the last minute. I've been hoping that we could get tickets on United fairly reasonable, because I want the miles to go on my account. Amazingly enough, as I say that to him, I find the lowest tickets on United. He nods, I click. Holy crap - I just bought two tickets to Paris. It's real. It's going to happen. I literally jump up and down in the office, scream, cry, and about pee my pants. I bought tickets to Paris. I'm going to Paris for my 40th birthday. I have dreamed about this since I was a little girl and it's finally happening!

To continue our winning streak, we decide to check out tickets to Dominican Republic. We were "coerced" into another vacation this fall - splitting a timeshare with Telle and Kristin in DR for a week. Unfortunately, the timing was a bit off and we needed a multi-city ticket to fly Phoenix to DR to Boston to Phoenix. At first it looks like it's going to be just shy of $800 each for the multi-leg ticket. Then, as I'm looking at it, a flight comes up from Delta for less than $500. Two trips for under $500 - crazy. We're living large on life, so I book it.

So to summarize the day:
1. Great client call
2. On-site sale to large pharmaceutical company (of which there will be multiple classes)
3. HUGE courseware sale to training company
4. Tickets to Paris
5. Tickets to Dominican Republic

And then to celebrate, we hung out in the pool for a few hours and then topped it off with dinner at Chilis.

Seriously..... is this a dream???