Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

At the end of every semester, I end with "The 3 Rules of Jack" which focus on life lessons.  Rule #2 is to consistently practice life-long learning in everything that one does.  Maybe that's an advanced degree (60% of my students do this post graduation). Maybe it's an individual work-related course, or perhaps it's pursuing a personal love of painting or sailing, learning another language, or in my wife's case, welding.  After watching two generations of students and many, many generations of friends, those individuals that are the most stimulating, those that have the most fun, and those that live the longest are those who stretch themselves to continuously learn.

Tags: HubSpot Tips, Inboound, writing business plans, writing your marketing plan, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2025 Business Planning, 2025MarketingPlanning, DavidMeermanScott, howtowriteamarketingplan, inboundmarketing

It's been a great summer!  For me, it's been wicked busy with just enough time off here and there to refresh. Off this morning with the unhappy cats already packed into the car to head to Vermont for a week before back to Boston for cataract surgery on the other eye the last week of August. I thought I would end the summer blogs with answers to a question that I get asked all of the time and for whatever reason was asked by a bunch of people after last Saturday's blog:  "What books do you recommend for keeping up with Sales & Marketing?"   

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Inboound, Teaching entrepreneurship, 2024 sales and marketing best practices, 2024 Sales Planning, 2024 Business Planning, 2024 Marketing Planning

Fall officially starts tomorrow, but in my trip to Vermont house last weekend, it was obvious that the rhythm of the seasons was in full cycle which is great since the fall season provides 25% of the tourist income for the state.   Vermont is absolutely in full rhythm for the fall:

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, SEO, Inboound, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

When I was in junior high school, it was obvious to me and to my parents that I was not doing well in math.  As a result, every Saturday morning was spent at the house of Mr. Sampson, the head of the high school math department, who served as my tutor taking me from basic addition to more complicated algebraic formulas resulting in a slow rewiring of my brain.  Math Saturdays took place all year including when the family returned from the beach in August, and I still remember walking back and forth to Mr. Sampson's house in the sweltering heat of the summer.  To a large degree, the rewiring process worked...although not so well according to my CFO friends.  

Tags: Sales Best Practices, HubSpot Tips, Inboound, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning

15 plus years ago, I learned the details of a new concept called "Inbound Marketing" from a young startup called Hubspot.  Since I had known co-founders Brian and Dharmesh, I started to explore their website that first summer just after we moved to the NH beach. I was amazed that they were making all of their detailed content about these very different strategies to be used in Sales and Marketing available on their site for free. I actually kept wondering when Hubspot would email me with a large invoice for all the content i was using, and then I discovered that providing free expert content itself was one of the pillars of Inbound. 

At the time, It made no sense to me to be giving away these jewels of expertise, but I would spend a couple of hours reading with the sun just coming up on the horizon at our new ocean house. I would then print everything out, load it into my beach bag and head out to the sand to devour what for me was an entirely new approach to sales and marketing than what I had learned as a salesguy. 

Process, Tools, Technology & Math seemed to me to be much more practical than just "stopping by and bringing Dunkin' & Doughnuts"

Piece by piece over the next year, I began to put these theories into hard practices coupled with Hubspot technology and realized that we could dramatically increase sales productivity for our customers...assuming that they wanted to learn and practice the science...and the discipline...of Inbound. 

Tags: HubSpot Tips, Making Tough Choices, Inboound, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning

Last night in watching the first 5 minutes of the national ABC news, the "I" word was mentioned 9 times

Bloomberg this morning was not much better with everyone focused on today's 8:30 retail sales data.

Technically, given the clinical definition of a recession, we were at that point at the end of Q2, but it was decided to "adjust" the definition a bit.  

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Making Tough Choices, Inboound, Teaching entrepreneurship, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning

Tags: value propositions, Inboound, sales management plans, marketing planning, sales management productivity, creating trust in sales, sales careers

To scale your business, you have to turn a trickle of sales into a steady, predictable stream of revenue. But that’s much easier said than done.

Tags: Sales Best Practices, marketing effectiveness, HubSpot Tips, Inboound

Companies face an enormous challenge trying to stay on top of marketing trends and finding new ways to increase lead generation.  When working with our clients to develop their marketing strategy and/or write their marketing plan we are always working to determine how to reach the right target audience, with the right message and generate the most MQL's (Marketing Qualified Leads).  One key strategy is always leveraging LinkedIn Groups to push out content to strategically targeted groups. This is a great way for companies to use existing content like blogs, white papers, Press Releases and push them out to the right audiences to increase lead generation.

 

Tags: marketing, how to write a marketing plan, SEO, Inboound

HubSpot surveyed over 6,000 of the world’s foremost marketers and salespeople. HubSpot asked them about their most pressing priorities, the challenges they face, and the strategies they plan to add in the year ahead. 

Tags: HubSpot Tips, Inboound