Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

"A clean forest is a happy forest !"

In the tiny town of Bondville (Federal government's name) and/or Winhall (the State's name), population 647, I was out in my Vermont woodlot this past weekend. Always a work process of love for the land that is good for my head, the soul and especially for the woods!  
My family has lived in this valley for over 250 years, and I have enough great grandfather and grandfather stories of real entrepreneurship to fill a book. I think that it's not by coincidence that I'm now director of the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center, just two miles from my grandfather's first retail store opened in Davis Square in 1908.  Bapa left the not-so-rural town of Poultney, just 20 miles up the road a piece from where I live in Vermont, to settle in Somerville next to the Tufts campus.  

Last Friday, Mike, my trusted co-worker, and I were deep in the Vermont muck with chain saws and ATV's cutting, bushwhacking, and generally cleaning up the final damage of the winta'. 

Today's critical number is seven!

1. Seven days in the week
2. Seven is a very spiritual number; just like three
3. Seven continents and seven seas
4. Shakespeare's "seven stages of life"
5. Seven colors in a rainbow
6. Seven letter in "SUCCESS"
7. ...and, of course, just seven days left in Q2 to make quota !

For years, I've always been a countdown guy ticking the numbers down from here to there, or more typically, I start at the "there" and back into where "here" is so that everything...quota, work, travel, and my work at Tufts with my extraordinary students and professors, gets handled efficiently...and most of the time, effectively. 

Time is obviously finite and allows for zero expansion in life, in projects and certainly in Sales.  The month closes, the calendar page turns and BAANNG, it's a new month, a new quarter, and we're on the other side of that measuring bar. Same as in sports when the buzzer sounds!  Zero difference since Sales is just like any professional sport.  Always remember that we're all professional athletes just like any professional sports figure...we just chose different careers.  Same requirements for training, motivation and the clarity of our drive!

• Limited time to work.  On average a "very good" salesperson works 57.5 hours a week, only slightly less than the 63.2 hours for a "very good" CEO...most of whom are what?  Salespeople!
• Limited time to sleep.  I guess that there is still a rule of thumb that the average adult needs eight hours, but there are those of us who have gotten by just fine, thank you, for decades on four or five, and last night on three. 
• Limited time to live.  'Nuff said about that depressing note, since today I chose to "Be Happy!"

A beautiful happy day here in Boston having finally shrugged off the ugliness of a cold wet spring to now bask in the excitement of the startup capital of the world.  Just a great day to be alive..."and sell some stuff"