Getting Back to Basics...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Apr 07, 2015

One of my best friends, Carolyn, decided to make a mid-life career change recently and enter the world of selling commercial and residential real estate in Vermont.  A tough job with lots of competition plus the vagaries of working in a seasonal resort. 

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management effectiveness, selling, sales management training, selling skills, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, sales management boot camps

Rally Cry...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Mar 27, 2015

A friend of mine just became the head of a large bank, which is one of our larger customers.  A solid and very comfortable guy that your first reaction to is... "I'd just like to sit around talking to to him".  Ex-football player from Dartmouth who now maxes out on a couple of Tough Mudders every year.  Great family man, just a nice guy, who is very focused on what he and his managers need to do in terms of performance and accountability. 

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management training, sales training, sales plans, sales management boot camp, strategic planning

Just 5 Questions...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Mar 13, 2015

As we move through March and the end of the first quarter, I always regard this time of year as a critical experiment of the new ideas, new strategies, new tactics, new activities and new people that you and the team planned for way back in October and November.  I like to think that both company-wide business plans and departmental-specific sales plans always work because, whether or not they result in the actual forecasted numbers, the planning framework that has been created is actually more important than the results since it provides a consistent process and structure that you can refine and refine again during the balance of the year.  By keeping to this process consistently, I guarantee that you will ultimately get to your goals and objectives.

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Tags: sales productivity, sales coaching, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, selling, Sales quota, sales training, sales management boot camp, strategic planning

What Makes a Great Sales Manager...and Sales?

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Nov 11, 2014

A 3 Minute Sales Management Course

A Vermont eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?'

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales tools, selling, sales management training, sales training

Storms on the horizon...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Oct 31, 2014

Do you remember the Northeasters from last week?

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales management effectiveness, sales coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablment, sales culture

Fall Leaves, Winter Planning...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Oct 10, 2014

 

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Tags: sales coaching, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales management training, sales training, sales plans, sales effictiveness, sales culture

Connections Should be Easy...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Sep 25, 2014

3 Simple Tips for More Effective Sales Connections.

As a sales guy, I have no problem with making connections.  For my business associates.  For my MIT and Tufts students.  For our customers of the firm.  It's part of the process of living and working in a tight ecosystem like Boston...or in any other city for that matter.

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Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales training

Sales Strategy is Simple; It’s Making the Choices That’s Tough

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Sep 04, 2014

Back to school, back to work, and back to all of the craziness and excitement between now and the end of the year closing deals and beginning the 2015 planning process.

Offsites with the team for a day or two at the Marriott, mini sessions in the big conference room out near the lobby, and then countless push & pull "discussions" with the accounting guys who always seem to be single minded-more results with less expense.  Maybe it's just part of earning the CFO badge, but, as keepers of the budget, CFOs orchestrate the annual dance trying to balance greater revenue growth while keeping expenses in check.

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Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, sales training, strategic planning

Strategic planning, business planning...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Jul 18, 2014

Sometimes we make this strategic planning stuff much too difficult, too mysterious and too complex to be useful in the real, rough and tumble world of scaling a profitable growth business. 

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Tags: sales and marketing best practices, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales management training, business planning, strategic planning, improving sales productivity

It's all about my time...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Jul 11, 2014

At the firm, we have the privilige of working one-on-one with hundreds of heads of sales and CEOs every year.  It's exciting and complex work that often comes down to discussing, assessing and implementing  a series of best practices that are heavily based in metrics and data.  From all of these interactions, there appear to be two or three priority concerns that these execs have in common regarding the management of their companies, and I've listed them below in priority order:  

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Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training