If it's April 16th, must be snowin' in VT

To a boring fault, I am all about planning...

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Tags: sales plans, business coaching, strategic planning, Tufts marketing projects, Tufts internships, student intern marketing projects, interns for marketing projects, how to write a marketing plan, how to write a sales plan, marketing planning

Intersections, Connections, & More Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Nov 01, 2017

I live & work at the intersections of...

  • The Company:
    At the firm, we work diligently to bring 25% jumps in Sales and Marketing productivity to our clients.
  • Tufts University:
    Teaching the science, tools, technology and metrics of Marketing and Sales.
    Most importantly, the teaching content of these courses is wound around 16 projects from real companies each year:  6 Marketing Plan projects in the spring, and 6 in the fall, plus 4 Sales Plan projects in the spring.  As a result, I am always looking for new companies, which is the purpose of this blog...more in a couple of paragraphs
  • Jobs Creation: 
    Connecting Tufts students to great jobs and opportunities!

    This service began when a few students (Emerging Jumbos) would get hired by their marketing and sales project companies during the semester.  Then, this process of creating connections easily expanded and quickly multiplied because I was able to open doors at companies like Hubspot, Brainshark, Fidelity, Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, Silicon Valley Bank, Facebook, Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft, and tens and tens of other "Great Places to Work". 

    Of course, that initial seeding of my alums into those companies has over the years led to lots of semi-annual calls from me that start with "Hi, I need a favor and could you give some guidance to one of my current students." 
  • Everyone of my alums knows the deal when they get that first job...it's time to pay back, and at some time, they will get "I need a favor call".

    The whole process works, and it has two wonderful consequences. 

    1.  It opens doors that would otherwise be closed or, at best, would be very difficult to open. 

    2. It keeps me in constant contact with my alums in their career journeys

    So, I was very pleased to receive last week, from Emani Holyfield, who now works in HR at Google (and is one of "My Personal Best Tufts Team" !) this video on The 8 Laws of Branding by Brian Tracy.  

    Brian Tracy (just a bit slow in his speech, but the guy is a genius and is well worth listening to for the full 8 minutes) focuses not on the generalities of "branding", but brings the meaning of this complex marketing word down to the street level of just what it takes for each of us to create great "Personal Brands". 
    This is just an excellent framework for anyone:  student, intern, upcoming 2018 graduate, and also for the more experienced salesperson or manager looking to open that next chapter in their journey.

    Ok, so now "The Pitch" 

Remember those 10 companies I need for the upcoming spring semester? 
6 Marketing Plan projects and 4 Sales Plan projects! 

This is a picture of our 2017 "Art & Science of Sales" Team, held only in the spring. (I teach at MIT in the fall and can't juggle three courses).  They totally knocked the cover off the ball this year!

What's the Value for You?
We're looking for complex marketing and sales projects from real companies in a variety of markets.  What you receive is a trained consulting team of five or six juniors and seniors working for 13 weeks to provide everything from full marketing or sales plans with detailed research and implementable recommendations to whatever sub segments of a full plan that you might need for 2018. Some smaller companies come to us for full marketing or sales plans, while others want to focus on a specific product or a new market. 

What's the Value for the Students? 
- They learn "on the job", and at the street level, the realities of Marketing and Sales
- They take classroom academics and apply that content to the reality of increasing sales  
- They interface frequently with management which builds their skills and confidence

So, if you are at all interested, just email me at jack@derbymanagement.com, and I will send you the detailed instructions on how to apply. 

It is a superb opportunity with hundreds of satisfied companies and graduate!

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Tags: sales and marketing best practices, sales plans, Tufts marketing projects, Tufts ELS program, Tufts Gordon Institute, marketing plans, jack derby professor at Tufts

"No School, All Schools, All Day...and Sales"

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Feb 09, 2017

When I grew up in Greater Boston, we had one "device" in the house, and that was one AM radio in my parent's bedroom.  No Internet?  We would never have even been able to comprehend the concept.  No, no Internet.  In fact, no TV.

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Tags: sales productivity, sales effectiveness, sales plans, sales process

"What Wakes Me Up in the Middle of the Night"

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Nov 15, 2016


Last week was Not a time for sleep!

In addition to my two "day jobs" of running our firm in Boston and teaching at Tufts, I spent hours and hours last week preparing for and then actually voting in my quirky little NH seacoast town.

More than anything else, standing out in the 35 degree Tuesday morning cold at 8:00 AM while waiting in line and sharing free coffee and hand made pastries from the local PTA, once again, I realized that this election process is a true testament to both "The American Way",...and also why New Hampshire is lovingly labeled "The Live Free or Die State". 

 

All of this may not be perfect, but, it sure works more than the alternatives.  Both the running of the country and the running of our businesses are fueled by growth, and it's time to put the election process behind us and get back to growing our companies.  

 

 

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Tags: sales productivity, sales enablement, sales plans

Jack, I love that strategy stuff, but I'm way too busy!

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Nov 03, 2016

Rich Horwath, CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute, found in his recent research that...

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Tags: sales plans, strategic planning, sales planning meetings

Time to talk about trash...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Aug 05, 2016

We just finished an assignment working with Paul and Craig, two solid, heavily experienced serial entrepreneurs who have developed breakthrough technology turning really big food waste (think food prep locations for major supermarket chains, universities and prisons, for examples) into small wafers that can be used as organic fertilizers. Great technology, superb ROI and heavily experienced entrepreneur owner managers attempting to change the world due to a major problem because...

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Tags: sales coaching, sales, Sales quota, sales plans

Checkups & Tune-ups...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Jun 24, 2016

Lots happening this week...

  • For the firm, it's end of the month and end of the quarter-just like our customers, we're scrambling
  • Sales are strong, but we're always looking for more
  • Added John Routhier as a senior partner...wicked strong background in sales and marketing
  • Personally feeling superb and just started jogging...well, kind of jogging 
  • ...and this week, I just completed my annual MGH checkups from my PCP, cardiologist and other specialists.  Back to back days, multiple tests...over and done with.  All good!

It's such a privilege to live in cities like Boston, New York, Dallas, and many others where one has such an incredible concentration of excellent, world-class healthcare.   After a couple of "situations" during the last couple of years, it's very reassuring to know from my buddies at MGH that everything on the health front is A-OK! 

We all live in very time-consuming  and high-pressure environments working very hard to balance our careers and personal lives, so having the quiet knowledge that everything is A-OK medically is more than a little comforting.


As a result of all of this personal process of questioning, probing, listening and testing, I thought that I would do the same with the business, which led to us sitting down this week to analytically take a snapshot of the business

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Tags: sales productivity, sales plans, business planning

What's Your Personal Sales Brand?

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Sat, May 28, 2016

Looks like it's going to be a great weekend!

Most importantly, we all need to take a few minutes and remember just what Memorial Day is all about.  

I, as all of you, have strong feelings about this day, and it's very important to remember why the day was created and the critical essence of what it's all about.  

Hopefully... "we will go to war no more".

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Tags: sales tools, sales plans, branding plans, marketing plans, branding, how to brand

The New Rules for Q2 Sales Success

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Apr 14, 2016

The numbers are in....

I've been roaming the sales cubicles of lots of companies most of last week and this.  Probably 20 plus companies in 10 work days. Opening doors into the heads of heavy-hitter sales leaders along with young, hard working BDRs. Asking the tough questions of hard-charging, get-out-of-my-way 35 year olds and also to a few 55 year old trail-beaten veterans who still hang on to "the old days" of relationship selling.  

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Tags: sales, sales coach, sales tools, sales plans, sales process

Events & Activities-3 Ideas to Maximize Your Impact

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Mar 10, 2016

What's an Event?  What's an Activity?

Today's my birthday.  

I was born at 10 minutes past midnight in Chicago's Cook County Hospital in a blue collar, South Side neighborhood of meat cutters and steelworkers and the home of my first generation Polish grandparents.  Wonderful people and wonderful memories that I still remember today since they were most often wrapped around events surrounding birthdays, Catholic holy days, marriages and funerals. All of these events are for me indelibly marked through emotions, the rituals of the church, and, of course, being Polish, the smells and kitchen sounds of unbelievable food piled high on huge oaken dining room tables.

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Tags: sales tools, Sales quota, sales plans, sales meeting