Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

Fingers in the dirt

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Hiring Perfectly, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans, Derby Entrepreneurship Center

• Leaving a wonderful Thanksgiving, we're now full speed ahead into the holiday season
• With 13-14-more real selling days in the Q4 season, we're updating forecasts daily. 
• After weeks of working on our 2023 business plan, we're deep in the season of budgeting.
  
  

And at Tufts, the reality of the seasonality of the last class of the semester, occurred this Wednesday after 12 weeks of content including 10 technical lectures from my alums and my TAs ranging from pricing to SEO, PR, research, competitive analysis, social ad buying, blogging, the art of presentations, budgeting and much more.  Added to this was one HBS case study, 36 individual value proposition presentations and Hubspot Inbound Marketing certifications. 

Then it all came to a close on Wednesday with a team lunch and a final presentation from another extraordinary marketing executive alum on her process of bringing together her own marketing plan.  Next week are the final 90-minute presentations to their host management of their team projects where 40% of their overall semester grade is decided by the management of their companies on the depth and quality of their marketing plans constructed over the semester.   For me, it's been an extraordinarily exciting semester which has resulted in strong academics and 18 new part-or full-time jobs generated from the course.  

Tags: Tufts university, Sales Hiring Perfectly, Teaching entrepreneurship, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, Derby Entrepreneurship Center

As I write this on a 14-degree sunny Saturday morning, I'm just in from snowblowing deep in the woods of Winhall (or Bondville) Vermont (pop.647).  Known by the State of Vermont, the town of Winhall is-according to the Feds-also the village of Winhall in the town Bondville.  Or maybe it's the other way around. Hard to figure.   

Tags: sales leadership, sales success, Sales Hiring Perfectly, sales management plans, sales management productivity, selling trust, sales motivation, writing sales plans, sales readiness

Vermont's Marketing in the Fall 

25% of Vermont's tourist dollars come as a result of four weeks during the leaf-peeping season from caravans of busses out the Midwest and outright commercialism of marketing and selling everything that is the essence of Vermont. 
To the left is a picture from last weekend taken from my dirt road 'bout half a mile from my house.  Doesn't get Vermont-better than this in terms of the beauty that is the fall...and the tourist dollars that come rolling in as a result.

Tags: Tufts university, value propositions, Sales Hiring Perfectly, jack derby professor at Tufts, sales management productivity, creating trust in sales, sales careers, Tufts Entrepreneurship

 

All about the team, a strong sales culture...and having fun

 I was sitting in a board meeting at Brainshark yesterday and listening to Colleen Honan, the highly experienced and talented Chief Sales Officer, talk about activity planning.  Colleen has all of the background, the years, and the depth of experience to truly be qualified as the head of sales of a leading tech company.  She's disciplined in her approach, fluent in new processes and technology and unrelenting in her approach to sales coaching, sales planning, sales training while  having fun at the same time.  

So when I walked in to the headquarters in Waltham at 7:30 yesterday, I was not surprised to see the salespeople already at work planning out their activities for the day and getting in early morning calls.  I was however, a bit taken back by the fact that one of the leading teams of 20 or so, was dressed in tuxes and gowns.  And then I learned that Colleen had been talking to them about the Gatsby generation, which inspired this very hard working team of classic millennials to dress the part for the day. So very cool...and engaging...and being part cementing the team!

Tags: Tufts marketing projects, interns for marketing projects, sales leadership, Sales Hiring Perfectly, jack derby professor at Tufts, how to write a sales plan, sales management productivity, sales effectivness, sales plans for 2018

I've been manufacturing, engineering and selling most of my life....tech products, medical devices, sports apparel, and now consulting services.  It's a wonderful and exciting profession, but make no mistake, Sales is tough work:

• Measurements occur every month and every quarter that totally define your success and income
• Frequent rejections happen all the time due to the necessary waterfall math of any sales funnel
• Positive energy is required all the time, even when you're knocked down once in a while
• There's a requirement to consistently learn new skills, technologies and processes

The Question of the Day: Can Sales be "taught", or is it "just natural"?

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales plan process, Sales Hiring Perfectly, how to write a sales plan, sales plans for 2018

Forget "ABC" - "Always be Closing". 

It's old school, offensive and counter to what we should be doing as salespeople, which is to sell value and create trust with our prospects and customers, and not force them to close. 

According to Karen Penticost, VP of Strategic Development at Envision Technology Advisors, who was part of the management team working with us at our Sales Management Boot Camp at the MIT Endicott House last week, we should...

"always be interviewing"

 

When asked why, Karen's responses were...

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, improving sales productivity, Sales Hiring Perfectly, Sales Hiring & Onboarding

JUST What is ENERGY?

For such an important and critical word, "Energy" is defined in the dictionary as a noun with the unemotional description of "the capacity for vigorous activity".

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, Sales Hiring Perfectly, Sales Hiring & Onboarding