Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

This is exactly where we hoped we would not be, and yet, here we are today in the belly of the beast.  

Not many of us any longer are hoping that this situation will get better, since what we have experienced most recently in the harsh reality of the last seven days, clearly defines that the personal and business impact will become a lot worse before it improves.  I am neither capable nor technically equipped to make any projections, and my personal business expectations are just as good or as bad as yours, but having said that, I, like you, run businesses and, like you, I'm a pragmatist, and I know that we are in this chaotic situation for a long time until vaccines hit the market.  

No one needs to tell us how difficult this is!

Typically, at this point in the selling season, I'd be writing this morning about the end of Q1, telling everyone to crunch it for this final week ahead, and begin prepping for the upcoming most important quarter in any selling year,   But, not today!

In a time of fear and concern regarding the personal and business impact of the COVID-19 virus, where do I turn? 

My recommendation is listen only to the experts! 

If I listen to most radio channels or watch David Muir on the evening news, in all respect, I don't know whether I should immediately drive to my Vermont bunker up on the ridge and hunker down with my six months of rations, or merely drive to Home Depot and pick up more antiseptic wipes. 

Good morning!  looks like a great Friday coming into a sunny weekend!

Every year I travel about 40,000 miles between the NH beach, the Tufts campus in Medford, the Derby Management office in Boston and the Vermont house alongside the Winhall River up the road a piece from Brattleboro. 

Because of the miles and the typical wicked tough New England weather, I totally love Subarus. Cheryl, my #1 Subaru salesperson, and I will soon be celebrating our 10th car together as soon as the pre-ordered 2020 four-cylinder turbo is delivered in a couple of weeks. 

Already deep into January....

Right now I'm about four hours away from my first Marketing course of this new semester at Tufts, and I never know who's more nervous or excited about the upcoming 13 weeks- me or the students? 

Experience says that it's always me!.

One does not need to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial, so it's with that thought that I share a few ideas to take you through the holidays and hopefully a couple of days off for a much-needed break.   

In the spirit of sharing, the first three of these came to me last week from one of the all-time great entrepreneurs, CB Vaughn, the founder of CB Sports, who revolutionized the world of skiing and championship ski racing by designing and manufacturing outwear that became the market leader in design, while being extremely functional on the hill.  Still today, when people notice that I worked with CB, they will stop and tell me about the first CB parka that they bought, its color, and how they had saved up for a year to make the purchase at top ski shops like Pedigree Sports.

• Always Inspire !
  

  Above everything else, inspire your team and your customers to want to do work with you!  At CB Sports, we weren't the biggest, but we were certainly the leading brand in terms of design, quality and functionality!  There was never a question as to the absolute focus on our customers and the value that we provided. Long before the clinical marketing term of "persona" was conceived, we knew exactly who are customers were...and were not. With CB's very strong leadership, all of us from associates to suppliers to retailers were totally driven to focus exactly on the team on the hill.

• Be Prepared for Your Own SuperBowl !

  During the time that I worked with CB, he had the drive and, most importantly, the discipline of preparation to be able to interpret and translate the smallest detail into the impact and the value that it delivered to our customers. His SuperBowl has always been the customer experience, which, when you think about it should always define our own success in everything we do.

• 4th & 1: You Don't Need a Playbook !

  In any company, whether it's one of my many emerging startups that we innovate out of the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center, or it's an established rapid-growth company like CB Sports, there are those critical times when you need to take control of the ball and just drive decisively down the field and win!

• Entrepreneurship is About Making Change Happen in your own world!

  Growing up as a corporate guy at Becton Dickinson, even though my great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father were all very different entrepreneurs, I couldn't spell "entrepreneurship" before I started sitting in the audience at the MIT Enterprise Forum, where years later I became an avid volunteer and a committed board member and chairman. 
  
  Back-in-the-day, even after working with CB and then starting a company when I returned to Boston, and then another company and another and more, I always thought of entrepreneurship as doing just that. I thought that entrepreneurship was all about starting companies and moving up and to the right from Concept to Team to Structure to Scale to Success. And, while that's somewhat true, that path works only in a tiny 1% of 1% of companies that actually succeed, and even then, it's never a straight line. 
  
  Of much more importance is our own entrepreneurial ability that's present in all of us to initiate and make change happen in whatever piece of the world where we choose to make it happen! 
  
  In among the holiday presents, the marvelous food and the travel, I would ask you to take a tiny slice of time and think about mapping out your own entrepreneurial journey for 2020.  I've just completed mine and looking forward to hearing about yours!
  
  Have a wonderful holiday!
  Enjoy !  Hug!  Be Safe! 
  Make Change Happen!
  Please stay connected! jack@derbymanagement.com 
  

  Advisor, Derby Management, experts in...
  -Sales & Marketing Productivity
  -Business and Strategic Planning
  WHAT WE DO AT DERBY MANAGEMENT

  
  
  
  

Today, hopefully you're heads down and totally focused on completing the year ahead of plan.  Whether you're in the profession of sales or you're an artist working on delivering the last of the Christmas ornaments, next week is the week when all of the marbles get measured.  Yea, I know...the month doesn't end on the 20th, but for all practical purposes, it really does.  Even if you're planning to work on the 24th and the 30th and 31st, you're going to be very lonely sitting at home talking to no one, so this is the last week to "Git-R-Done!"

As you're lining up calls, connections and closings today while keeping an anxious eye on the disappearing minutes on the clock, keep very focused on just three things:

1. Don't Overthink.  

   Your work today and next week is all about your focus to close deals in five days from today!
   You are not in the business of providing creative strategy or product development solutions for your prospective customer that will impact their business two or three years from now.  You're the solution and business value provider whose company will provide the absolute best products and services that will improve your prospects' 2020 business results by increasing their revenue, their gross profit and their net income.  

2. Be Human

   With a short countdown till launch of only five days, be human and project your own humanity of  working 10 and 12 hours a day at this time of year to the person on the other side of the table-phone-text-email-videophone.  They're just as stressed as you are and have equally stretched schedules of work, kids, teacher conferences, holiday parties and wicked travel.  Yesterday, it took me two and a half hours just to drive from Logan to the Back Bay...and there were no accidents.  Forget 128/95/495 travel at 7:00 AM or 5:00 PM, but also remember that that's the reality of what happens to your prospect every day.  Be extremely sensitive to that type of reality and assess what it is that you could do personally that would reduce the stress, improve the time efficiency and impact the value that you and your products provide to your buying decision maker?  
   
   I'm running a two-day business planning session during the first week of January for 16 people.  The real work is the technical stuff related to the prep, the interviews, and the facilitation of the meeting.  I happily volunteered (and was immediately asked to do so) to take care of all of the logistics, hotel and travel reservations, food and everything else freeing up the senior team to focus on closing their year.

3. Buckle Up

   This is crunch time; it's as simple as that!.  This weekend and the next five days require 100 hours of work, waking up before the kids tomorrow and Sunday and getting in at 7:00 AM and not 8:30 all next week.  
   Do everything you already know how to do and make sure that you're physically and mentally on the top of your game because when it's over, it's over! 

Please stay connected! jack@derbymanagement.com