Back-in-the-day... MRP, ERP, Quality Circles, ISO900, DFM, KANBAN, and a myriad of other manufacturing productivity improvement tools and technologies were the structural keys to the success of the resurgence of quality and manufacturing superiority in the U.S.  

In the '70's and '80's, as a direct result of the new-age religions of processes, standardized tools, technologies and metrics preached by the High Priest, W. Edwards Deming, and national activities such as the Malcolm Baldridge Award, U.S. manufacturing steadily pulled itself back to worldwide superiority in such diverse markets as cars, appliances, in semiconductors and general electronics.  This refocus to massive productivity and quality gains, resulting in much higher levels of customer satisfaction, took a national call-to-action spread over a couple of decades, and it worked, and it continues to work today with US manufacturing productivity output doubling over the last 15 years.

And Yet, Sales Productivity in too many companies Sucks...

• In the last 10 years, selling costs rose faster than revenues.
• In the last 5 years, SG&A costs have increased 12.5% (Alix Partners 2013)
• According to Sales Benchmark Index, in the last 3 years, sales productivity declined for the world’s largest sales forces.  Only 41 of the SBI 100 companies increased sales productivity per employee.
• There's been an average productivity decline of 2.5 % over the last three years.

Joe Gusfaston, Chairman of Brainshark, the industry leader in Sales Readiness, who consolidated many of these stats, noted in an article published by Forbes that "Sales enablement is about how to improve productivity of sales by squeezing out inefficiencies and maximizing effectiveness,”    

Leaders like W. Edwards Deming, back-in-the-day, for manufacturing, and guys like Joe Gustafson today for Sales Readiness & Enablement, understand the sales productivity crisis and are actually doing something about it.
 

which is Why We've Teamed Up with Hubspot on March 20th For...

"Constructing a Winning Blueprint for 2017"

Most of us in our firm grew up on the manufacturing floors and in the engineering labs of our prior companies until we came to understand the reality of the simple business credo that..."Success in business is about just two things: Sales ! and other stuff" (Professor Howard Anderson, Harvard Business School).

We've also been devotees about everything Hubspot since the company was founded.  We use their tools, they are customers of ours, and we of them. 40+ of my Tufts alums (very happily) work there.  The Hubspot technologies are the backbones of my course in Marketing, and most recently my new course "The Art & Science of Sales".  Many of my class lecturers are my alums now working (very happily) at Hubspot.  All of this is very symbiotic, the process works perfectly and everyone benefits.

As a result of that partnership, we decided to co-host with Hubspot this "Constructing a Winning Blueprint for 2017" event on March 20th at the Hubspot headquarters in Cambridge, which is focused directly at the senior leaders (CEOs, and Heads of Marketing and Sales) of manufacturing companies. Kicking off with an introduction by Hubspot co-founder, CTO, and tech visionary, Dharmesh Shah, this unique event will outline the intersections of systems, processes and metrics between the rapidly evolving worlds of Sales & Marketing productivity and the productivity improvements being made on the factory floor.

The Agenda:

• 11-12 PM -Lunch & Networking
• 12-1 PM-Welcome and presentation from Dharmesh Shah, CTO and Co-Founder of HubSpot
• 1-2 PM Manufacturing CEO Panel, facilitated by Jack Derby
• 2-3 Q&A, Discussions and Networking

Questions?  

Just connect with me at jack@derbymanagement.com or with my partner, John Routhier, who, with Hubspot, is in charge of this event at john@derbymanagement.com, and we'll fill in the details.

Have a great day selling today! 

Head Coach