Real dangerous for me to bring up a subject as far reaching as “personality” since that immediately brings to question my own personality (as in “none”), and I’m sure that we do not want to go there. No, this has to do more with the personalities that we and the members of our sales team portray in our online presence.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, marketing effectiveness, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs, marketing management
I had just graduated from BC and had a ticket to go to the University of Chicago for graduate work where I would have studied some dusty, esoteric slice of Elizabethan writing, ending up as an English professor in a small college somewhere. I still remember the look of shock and dismay x number of years ago now on a hot July afternoon when I announced to my father that I was not going to Chicago (which I did years later) and that I was leaving for Peace Corps training that September. 135 of us began language studies and survival training that fall in Syracuse (no better place, of course, to train in prep for equatorial Africa) and about 80 of us finally made our way to Tanzania's Dar es Salaam the following January.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, jobs, finding sales jobs
I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at Middlesex Bank’s CEO Forum last week. A great bank, superb guests and for me, a fun opportunity to talk about something that I've fervently believed in ever since I started the company 22 years ago- how to build your competitive edge. Aptly named, our long running newsletter, The Competitive Edge, and this blog speak to what I carry around as a religion in how I think about business in general and especially the world of sales.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, business coaching, leadership, economic stimulus, The Competitive Edge, strategic planning
On the way to NYC this morning on the 5:30 Acela out of Boston. No better way to travel. Nice and quiet, surrounded with Wi-Fi, food and great service for a three hour trip with lots of work to do. What’s not to like? A superb way to travel, an efficient way to get work done, plus I really like trains, which are by now baked into my DNA, perhaps just like Vermont has become part of my six generation heritage.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, sales optimication, marketing management
The last class of the semester was this past Wednesday. Actually, it was one of the two exam presentation days-this past Wednesday plus the prior week-when the management of the project companies returns to Tufts for their final presentations. 30 students organized into 6 teams, companies with complex, semester-long marketing projects and a ton of work over 13 weeks of lectures, field work, road trips and four HBS case studies. We do a lot of “real world” in my class, and, this year’s students in both semesters were outstanding.
Since much of the course focuses on not only the strategies and execution tactics of the rapidly changing world of marketing, but also on tying that content back into how the students need to be marketing themselves, one of my personal deliverables is to make sure that the graduating seniors end up with the best jobs. Good news is that I’m pretty well connected and can open a few doors so that my graduates can now be found in sales and marketing jobs at great companies like HubSpot, Brainshark, Brown Brothers, Fidelity, Monitor, Siemens, Digitas, Jones Lang LaSalle and numerous other businesses among our customers and friends in the community.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs, marketing management, finding marketing jobs
Had lunch with Jerry yesterday. One of my favorite venture guys in Boston. Bright, energetic, a great sports guy, but there we both sat on State Street eating salmon and not wolfing down Fenway Franks and attending Opening Day. My excuse was that I opted for the root canal that I had just had yesterday morning rather than watch the Sox. Jerry’s was that he felt guilty after we had both broken numerous prior meeting plans, but that really can’t be true about feeling guilty, since, as I mentioned, Jerry’s a venture guy. By the way if you want to watch a point-counterpoint discussion/argument between Jerry Bird from MTDC and me on “Venture Capital or Angel Funding-Which Money Should I Take?”, go to the 128 Innovation Capital Group site to register. It’s on the morning of May 10th and should be a lot of fun as I take these smart venture guys down a peg or two…or maybe not.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans
My new iPad was delivered last Monday. On the marketing bell curve, I’m on the far left side of the “early adopters”, and although I’m no longer sleeping on the sidewalk waiting for the store to open, I always like the excitement of new toys. Most of the time the new toy syndrome plays out perfectly in products such as Apple’s, and sometimes it backfires like when I bought that piece-of-junk Touareg the week it was introduced. With computer products, back in the day, I would then block out the rest of the morning and afternoon to upload, download, plug in, plug out, reboot and reboot again after reading through inch thick manuals.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans
Coffee this morning? Of course, and each of us has our own thought process in making the choice of whether it’s going to be Green Mountain, Starbucks or Dunkin'. Since we have lots of Keurigs strategically placed in our various kitchens, the Boston office and our home offices, my choice is less about the coffee, but the convenience and the variety. But, then that’s me, and as the LP (Little Princess) often reminds me that since I have the taste buds of a warthog, I’m pretty sure that I can’t tell the subtle differences.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans
Most people are wired to like consistency. Consistency represents a recognizable pattern, and in the way we run our crazy lives, patterns provide relative predictability. As a result, if I’m doing things in a somewhat consistent way, I know that I can naturally increase my percentage of predictability, which gives my brain a tiny shot of dopamine, which makes me “feel good”.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans
