Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

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

• -220 work days in the year
• -"the best" sales people work 57 hours/week
• -15%/week is the average time totally wasted
• -only 57%/week spent on actual "selling"
• -most deals take 6 calls & meetings to close
• -most salespeople give up after 3 calls
• -most salespeople create 65%+ of their own leads

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

As we wind down the 5th month of the sales year, and we're steaming ahead toward the end of the second quarter, it's a good time to take a deep breath this weekend and just answer this simple question...

Tags: sales coaching, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management effectiveness, sales optomization, best sales practices;

April 21st marks the 118th running of the Boston Marathon.  Considering the tragedy that occurred last year, this particular marathon will be steeped in pride and emotion as a record number of runners participate to show their support for the event and the runners, along with their respect for those who died and were injured in last year's horror.

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

Driving back from running one of our boot camps in Rochester last Friday, I decided to stop at the house in (the frozen tundra of) Vermont rather than make the drive even longer by continuing on to the NH beach.  Looking at the house, as I drove in late Friday afternoon, I noticed that there were...

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales optomization, sales boot camps

Last Sunday, I was walking out to the barn and noticed that the big red thermometer read 6. Just by it's naked self...6.   Certainly a lot colder locations over the last couple of weeks. -31 in Fargo, -19 in Albany, and yesterday,-8 in Chicago, but here in the woods of Bondville-Winhall (pop. 725), it was just plain old 6 without the pluses or the minuses.  Just so that I would keep my sanity as I shoveled yet another path for the propane delivery guy to get to the tank, I thought about the relevancy of the number 6.  

Tags: sales coaching, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales, sales management effectiveness, sales optomization, sales boot camp, sales management boot camp, sales checklists

Toward the end of a very hectic December, I was facilitating a series of 2014 sales plan reviews for the senior sales team of a new customer.  It was interesting for me to note that in a few of the presentations, even heavily experienced salesguys commented that although this was their plan for the year, there "are a number of factors that are out of my control".   Always the pain-in-the-neck, provoking guy that I am, I asked about those, and the responses were...

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales optomization, sales training, sales management boot camp, sales boot camps

Just Three 2014 Things...

If there were just three things that you could improve on and be super successful at during 2014, what would they be?

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales boot camp, sales jobs, sales management boot camp, strategic planning, sales checklists

Coming off the Thanksgiving break after one too many slices of pumpkin pie, I'm feeling pretty good about sales specifically and business overall right now.  A couple of solid weeks of selling left in the year.  Everyone at the firm is maxed out with work.  January's outlook appears to be reasonably ok.  Teaching at Tufts and MIT are in exam modes. The stock market is humming, and the economy in general seems to be more positive...even though the fundamentals (little things like debt, GDP growth and jobs) aren't that much better.

Tags: sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management boot camp, business tools, business planning, business plans, sales boot camps, best sales practices;

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales effictiveness, sales boot camps