Tattoos...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Jul 27, 2012

You gotta love my newly adopted state of New Hampshire.  Where else can one cross the state border, and the first exit from any direction has a state liquor store which also sells 50 plus different types of lottery tickets.  The second exit has a store that sells fireworks right next to a line of tattoo shops, and between the two exits are 8 lanes of toll booths, two of which require you to speed through at 65 miles an hour while your EZ Pass clicks away.  Add to all of this that NH is the only state without a mandatory seat belt law, and even though it has the highest percentage of motorcycle owners to total population in the US, we do not require helmets.   And of course, our state motto, “Live Free or Die”, is the subject of many a tattooed body.  I always say, “We don’t call NH-The Granite State-for nothing”.

Read More

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans

Time...and Sales...and on the Beach

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Jul 19, 2012

Just sitting here on the beach, doing some field research of course, and thinking through the relationships of time and sales.  All of us who are in the profession of sales, no matter what our level or experience, are measured by some metric related to time.  Quota/month, Y/Y sales, ramp speed and countless other metrics measure our abilities to perform within  specific periods of time.  Time is the name of the game; it’s the measure of top of the pack and bottom of the heap; it’s how we get paid and it’s the one metric that measures us against our peers as to who goes to “Club” and who goes to “On Plan”.

Read More

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs

Leadership...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Jul 11, 2012

A superb 4th of July week.  Great weather here in New England…not so in other states without power…and certainly the word “heat” was repeatedly in everyone’s vocabulary.  The other word that I often heard last week and especially on the 4th was “leadership”, or more correctly, the “lack of leadership”. 

Read More

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs

Just Feeling Good about the 4th…and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Jul 03, 2012

Ran into church a bit late last Sunday to find everyone robustly singing “America the Beautiful”.  With those words and that spirit still ringing in my head when I returned home, I promptly finished decorating the house which now has flags and bunting covering both decks and enough other iParty stuff everywhere to make red, white and blue the official colors of the summer.   I’m not exactly sure why this patriotic spirit cascades in me every summer, except that I do know that it feels good.  It’s not because any one thing happened-we didn’t just joystick another Al Qaeda leader or anything like that.  It’s just because it’s simply the 4th, business is pretty good, and I figure if we can stick it out through the long hot summer of politicians beating one another up, the economy should stabilize just a bit more after the elections. 

Read More

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs