We Just Need to Get Along Together !

First, and most importantly, please have a wonderful, warm and safe holiday!  I'd like to thank you for your support, your notes, and the agreements...and disagreements... with my weekly ramblings.  Hopefully, there have been a few takeaways this year that you've been able put to use to increase your own sales and marketing productivity, which brings me to today's subject of "just getting along".  

-This is not about the wars, since neither I nor you can make much of an impact.
-This is not about the backstabbing of the self-righteous Washington politicos.
-This is not about troubled personal relationships.  Fixing Washington might be easier.

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Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, marketing effectiveness, business planning, 2024 sales and marketing best practices

For planning for '22, first enjoy this weekend!

Just before we jump into the deep end of the pool next Tuesday, it might be worthwhile to think about approaching this year's planning season by looking out over two horizons and dividing your business plan into both the first and second halves of 2022.

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Tags: sales planning, marketing effectiveness, business planning, how to close sales, marketing planning, writing sales plans, writing business plans, 2022 business planning

David Meerman Scott says it best about finding time

My relationship with David goes back a decade plus when I fell across his iconic The New Rules of Marketing and PR, which, for me and my students became our bible of change.  Now having written its 7th edition, David always continues to rapidly evolve and extend that misunderstood word "Marketing" from what we used to think about marketing and PR to now the the colliding worlds of Content Marketing, Podcasting, Social Media, AI, Live Video, and Newsjacking.  For me, I've always followed the most simple definition of Marketing, which I learned from my other folk hero, Regis McKenna, in his ageless HBR essay Marketing is Everything, which when one does not overthink this word, "marketing" is just an exceptional definition.

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Tags: marketing effectiveness, business planning, marketing plans, marketing planning

end of semester & the 3 Rules of Jack


Drove late last night here to VT for a fully packed day today of normal Derby Management meetings and the first two of our seven final student presentations for the semester.

BTW, although snow is still on the ground here at the house in the woods, down in the big city of Winhall (pop.769) 2.8 miles away at the general store, our own VT version of outside dining at Starbucks, the sun is out although a brisk 50,

 

 

13 weeks after that first always-a-bit-awkward, full-tilt, information-packed start to the semester back in January, we're now down to the final 90 minutes of meetings with the senior management of our marketing project companies:

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Tags: marketing effectiveness, business planning, marketing, Tufts marketing projects, how to write a marketing plan, value propositions, whiteboardingmarketingsolutions

Winhall VT, the New York Times & a world of change

I heard from many of our blog subscribers about last week's NYT article on my tiny Vermont town of Winhall. [The Virus Sent Droves to a Small Town. Suddenly, It’s Not So Small. ]

- A very human and objectively correct article

- Filled with real facts about the boom in real estate 

- Yes, Scott, a very good friend, is  "One Cranky Dude"

- Yes, lots of change...all very healthy change for VT. 

Scott Bushee, a solid 6th generation Vermonter, is the supervisor of Winhall’s transfer station (do not use the phrase "town dump" around Scott), spent the summer training all of the newcomers in recycling. “The minute you come through that gate, you’re in Scott’s country,” he said. “I’m the dictator here.”  Scott is also the Town Moderator. and he runs the annual town meetings with the same level of practical, no-nonsense, direct-talk that he does everywhere...including his FB posts. We could have used him the other night as the moderator of the most embarrassing management debacle ever.  

Scott's a 6th generation Vermonter, just like me, and I could hear his Vermont accent when I read in The Times...“Now you’ve got to deal with Vermonters,” he said. “They will tell you straight up. I try to do it as politely as I can, but if you push the envelope, things are going to go sideways because right now the closest word I can tell you is it's sheer pandemonium.”

I'm in Winhall this morning, where it's a balmy 50 out by the barn, and what I've seen during the summa' because of the emigration out of NY and CT is that...

  • there are zero houses for sale other than the worst teardowns and even those have bids
  • Mike, my broker for my "extra five acres" of land up on the ridge is getting lots of calls
  • the post office ran out of available P.O. boxes in mid-June.
  • electricians and plumbers are booked until Christmas.
  • a simple pane of glass for the window broken by my lawn guys took 8 weeks to replace
  • complaints about bears have quadrupled.  

All of which represents change, and from my perspective, very healthy change in a town and in a state that has been eroding for years.  Yes, Vermont is very picturesque, and yes, that smell of fresh cut hay in early July and the perfect photo of fall leaves taken out by the dairy farm is all very wonderful, but the harsh reality of the real Vermont is that it's a tough place to live, and an even tougher place to find good jobs.

  • Drive 10 miles out of the ski towns, and you're in rural America with a declining population
  • Other than retail, and those jobs are now disappearing, real, good-wage jobs are non-existent
  • Drug addiction has been declared an epidemic by two governors with no sign of abatement
  • Energy costs are the highest in the US save for Hawaii 
  • Don't get me started on senators Leahy & Sanders, neither of whom do much for VT.

Bottom line of any small town and of any small business, new people bring new ideas and vitality.  New ideas create new businesses and new jobs.  New jobs bring money and the flywheel keeps turning.  

With new families moving into the town doubling the size of the local school population (which had been declining for a decade plus) and bringing new ideas, new energy and new dollars into a fragile economy, this change in Winhall is very positive creating a new sense of vitality and experimentation that comes only from new young families.  

“It’s hard to know who is living in what house,” said Ms. Elanor Grant, 50, who is also Winhall’s treasurer, registrar of deeds, tax collector and presiding officer of elections. 

She is also the ex-wife of Mr. Bushee. It is an amicable divorce; recently, when a wasp became lodged in his ear canal, she rushed over to his house with tweezers.

...only in Vermont!

 


Embrace the Opportunity 

Absolutely, the chaos created as a result of Covid has been and continues to be a disaster.  We know what to do to protect ourselves, our families and our employees, and we're also fact-based enough to know that this problem will continue deep into 2021. The harsh reality of the virus was brought to the forefront in the early hours of this morning with the announcement of the president and first lady testing positive.  

We're facing a long winter ahead, and from the perspective of our own businesses, we now need to focus on what we can control and bring our positive energy, our expertise and our innovation to the forefront of what we are doing every day for the balance of this new quarter.

Winhall is never "going back" and neither will the professions of Sales & Marketing 

  • Many of the age-old tactics of Sales & Marketing have been out of touch with customers and prospects for years.  In B2B tech sales we've known for years that 70ish% of prospective buyers have reported that their first meeting (both phone calls and F2F meeting) with a salesperson was a waste of time, and that they would never take another call or meeting.  And yet salespeople have continued to relentlessly batter down the doors with more and more blind emails and cold calls that make a used-car salesperson look good by comparison.  
  • Sales & Marketing success today is all about demonstrating customer value.  Unless our sales and marketing messaging and outreach tools can demonstrate fundamental financial value to both prospects and customers, we're just an unnecessary interruption in an environment where no one anymore has any extra time or desire to listen to yet another empty statement which is focused on the seller's table and not the buyer's.
  • Live trade shows are gone forever.  We've been trying to kill this antiquated time-sink of energy and money for decades, and the stats have told us for all of those decades that the cost per lead was 10X the cost of any other form of marketing, but we've continued to play the trade show game.  Maybe it was because we were afraid what our competitors would say when we didn't show up, or that we often used that same time for training our salespeople since they all felt that they needed to be in the booth.  Very simply, no one is going back to live trade shows ever!  Virtual trade shows and conferences, sure, but physical meetings?  Who would take that life and death risk?  Remember that the infections from the Biogen conference in Massachusetts in February started from just one person and has now been traced to over 20,000 direct infections.

Like Scott Bushee and Eleanor Grant and the 769 residents of Winhall, embrace the change, figure out the new opportunities that this time provides and experiment with new marketing and sales tactics during the next 60 days as you now turn your attention to closing Q4 and the year ahead of plan...still plenty of time to do that! 

I'm headed out to the general store for a breakfast sandwich before my 9:00 AM sales meeting this morning !  


 

Have a great day selling today as we push forward into embracing the changes of this fall and Q4

CONFIDENTIAL SOUNDING BOARD

If at any time, you have a need for a confidential sounding board in business planning or for Sales or Marketing, just connect with me at any time.  Text or email me, and I will quickly set up a call. 

I'm a pretty good listener.  Obviously, no cost for a call or two; just an opportunity to listen intently and make a few recommendations based on decades of experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tags: sales and marketing best practices, sales management effectiveness, business planning, Sales Leadership in the Revolution, entrepreneurship, how to write a sales plan, sales effectivness

Throw out the plan and survive!

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Sat, Mar 21, 2020

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!

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Tags: business planning, writing a business plan, Making Tough Choices, 2020 business plans, 2020 sales plans, writing business plans

How'd We Do?  Time to Measure Up, Rethink & Replan!

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Jul 25, 2019

Summa!

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Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, sales management, sales coach, sales planning, sales producitivity, business tools, business planning, business plans, The Competitive Edge, writing a business plan

Celebrate The Revolution !

Thanks for closing the Q on time and even squeaking in those last few orders on Friday afternoon before the closing bell !  This morning, whatever the number was, it feels good to have the wind at your back and a new page open to a new week, a new month and a new quarter !  Still lots of room between now and the end of December.    

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Tags: business planning, business coaching, business plans, strategic planning, strategic

Checkups & Tune-ups...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Jun 24, 2016

Lots happening this week...

  • For the firm, it's end of the month and end of the quarter-just like our customers, we're scrambling
  • Sales are strong, but we're always looking for more
  • Added John Routhier as a senior partner...wicked strong background in sales and marketing
  • Personally feeling superb and just started jogging...well, kind of jogging 
  • ...and this week, I just completed my annual MGH checkups from my PCP, cardiologist and other specialists.  Back to back days, multiple tests...over and done with.  All good!

It's such a privilege to live in cities like Boston, New York, Dallas, and many others where one has such an incredible concentration of excellent, world-class healthcare.   After a couple of "situations" during the last couple of years, it's very reassuring to know from my buddies at MGH that everything on the health front is A-OK! 

We all live in very time-consuming  and high-pressure environments working very hard to balance our careers and personal lives, so having the quiet knowledge that everything is A-OK medically is more than a little comforting.


As a result of all of this personal process of questioning, probing, listening and testing, I thought that I would do the same with the business, which led to us sitting down this week to analytically take a snapshot of the business

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Tags: sales productivity, sales plans, business planning

Live to Learn, Learn to Teach

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Mar 24, 2016
Learn a little about Sales, learn a lot about Sales...everyday

   

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Tags: sales, business planning, how to write a business plan, Tufts Marketing, marketing interns, marketing plans, how to write a marketing plan