10 Lessons in Entrepreneurship from 20 Entrepreneurs!

I've probably listened to, coached or presented in 10-20,000 presentations.

  • Early volunteering and chairing the MIT Enterprise Forum, was my first love!
  • Being involved in the leadership of 4 or 5 other entrepreneurship associations
  •  20 years of teaching at MIT in early stage business planning 
  • 14 years of teaching at Tufts in entrepreneurial marketing and sales 
  •  Director of the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center & Cummings Professor of entrepreneurship
  •  9 of my own startups-a few very good, some just ok, and some "what was I thinking?"
  • A venture guy in three early stage venture firms and chairing Common Angels.
10,000 plus seems to be a good guess over 30 years; it's probably a lot more.

A couple of years ago, when we took over what has now been rebranded as the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center, we knew we could most importantly take entrepreneurship to the next level at this extraordinary University with 10 of the highest ranking research schools in the country.  We're really urgent, so we quickly moved ahead breaking more than a few rules along the way always focused on creating the absolute best student experience!

Read More

Tags: Tufts Marketing, marketing interns, entrepreneurship, jack derby professor at Tufts, Tufts Entrepreneurship Center

3 Early 2020 Sales Predictions

Many of us are currently crunching through data, spreadsheets, analytics and forecasts trying to figure out what our operating plans will be for 2020.  Whether it's the almighty CFO continuously prodding us for this information as she assembles the company's financial plan or our sales manager taking even more time out of our already super-packed prospecting week to juggle scenarios, the pressure's on to figure out plans for 2020.  Hard enough as a salesperson, wicked hard as a manager and darn near impossible as the boss, but, who cares?  It is what it is, and what it is is about business planning and forecasting at this time of year in the seasonal cycle of business.   

The weak salespeople and managers will whine, complain and not dive in and do the real hard work of assessing the last 10 months of data and will simply guess.  The pros will sift through the analytics, consult with their peers, sit with marketing and then work directly with the quants in Finance to make sure that what their forecasting works for the department and the company.  Nothing exists in a vacuum!

Read More

Tags: improving sales productivity, writing sales plans, writing business plans