A Little Sun & a Lot of Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, May 26, 2011

9 out of 10 sales calls are going to end up in outright rejection or at least an entry pass into the valley of despair with such heartwarming comments like, “We need to discuss this internally…for a while”, or even after you’ve used all of your considerable closing skills to get a commitment, the response continues to be, “We’re still kicking this around, I'll call you in the next couple of weeks”. 

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, Sales quota, sales training

Graduation & Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, May 18, 2011

Tufts’ graduation is coming up this weekend, and many of my students over the years will make the big jump from student to wage-earner. For me, my most important metric as a professor is how many of my ex-students have I directly assisted in getting jobs, and it’s very rewarding for me to see them get offers this semester from Deloitte, HubSpot, Brainshark and IBS just to name a few.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, sales training, management

Up Against the Wall: The Celtics & Sales Quotas

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, May 12, 2011

It certainly applied to the Celtics before last night’s devastating loss to the Heat, and it certainly applies to those sales professionals who are struggling half way through the quarter with not enough points yet on the board. Did the Celtics get outplayed by the Heat the holy trinity of LeBron, Wade and Bosh? Sure, but the die was cast going into the game last night. Tough enough that the Celtics were being outplayed throughout the series by the Miami Machine. Tougher still was the fact that the Celtics looked and acted like the old men that they are. Add to all of that the fact that they were up against the wall, crushed by their prior losses and facing an enormous hill to climb. Take all of this into the equation, throw in superb young athletes, and it was impossible to survive.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, marketing effectiveness, Sales quota, sales training, management

Sales Effectiveness & Your Summer Sales Calendar

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, May 03, 2011

End of one sales month, and the beginning of another. Just a turn of the page in the digital sales book, but a wakeup to the fact that the quarter is one third over and rapidly racing towards the end of June. I actually love the 2nd quarter since it still retains all of the excitement and energy of the new year kickoff...way back in January... plus we now have four months of real customer experience under our belts. Better to update sales plans and tweak selling tactics for the balance of the year.

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Tags: sales productivity, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, management, business tools, business planning, business coaching, sales optimication