Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

In my 9 prior startups where I've been a founder/co-founder, they've all been in software or healthcare. Those are comfortable markets where I have backgrounds, plus I personally enjoy the complexities of building go-to-market marketing and sales plans in these demanding markets. My forays into consumer products have been limited to a medtech product sold in chain pharmacies and to outerwear apparel working with the genius of  legendary CB Vaughn at CB Sports.  

There are certainly more than a few universities both locally and across the country that feature entrepreneurship programs.  In fact, every university and most standalone colleges have an entrepreneurship program from the giants of Babson, where entrepreneurship is their DNA, to the halls of MIT, where I also teach, to excellent programs at BU, BC, UNH and across all the campuses of UMass.  Very simply, a university cannot be taken seriously without entrepreneurship studies in their program at some level since. in fact, entrepreneurship is not about tech startups.  Real entrepreneurship is about innovation and very few universities are as well-equipped as is Tufts, which is recognized as one of the top research universities in the U.S.  

Gearing up for re-entry into the Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts since in four weeks, I'll need to accelerate from my normal 70 mph day-to-day Derby Management work to 110 mph at Tufts. 

That faster pace and my personal excitement of Tufts are the result of the tight integration of my teaching marketing to 36 juniors and seniors who are already signed up in six person teams working on six complex semester-long marketing projects.  Of these six projects, three are well-known companies to Derby Management, one is an emerging company begun by one of my alums, another is a startup from a very well-known nutrition scientist here at Tufts, and the remaining is a fascinating consumer healthcare product.   

The bottom line of the kickoff on September 7th is that full marketing plans complete with research, strategies, tactics, detailed recommendations and budgets will be presented to their customers for grading during the first week of December.  

The 1st class begins with "So, what is Marketing?"

The class actually begins with a 15-minute, rapid-fire, standup 15 question quiz on one of the summer assignments which is to complete what I call "a beach read" of David Meerman's Scott's iconic, 8th edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. 

That exercise is then followed with my favorite question which I always ask in my kickoff class at Tufts and at MIT.  It's a very simple question, and for me a very simple answer, which I do not provide until the whiteboard is filled with answers from the students which typically include words such, "convincing", "selling", "social media", "ads", "PR", "branding", "lead generation", "pricing" and even a few negative words like "tricking" and so on.

Marketing is Everything!

I always go back to the iconic Marketing is Everything article written by Regis McKenna, one of the most influential marketers in history, and one of the small number of individuals who began what is today known as Silicon Valley.  I find that the underlying premise of this 30-year-old article is even more critical today given the explosion of choices everyone has in their marketing strategies, tactics, platforms, tools and apps, most of which are powered through AI and bots. 

And let's not forget that the hyper-crowded graphic above is only martech and does not include radio, TV, snail mail, billboards or trade shows which continue to have a major role in what we call "marketing"!

The good news is that marketing is everything!  The bad news is that marketing is everything!  And many non-progressive marketers continue to believe that what they did five years ago, or even last year, is still relevant or sales productive today. The reality is that it may be, likely it is not.  

Many of us believe we're pretty good singers in the car or the shower, but only a tiny 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% become paid singers.  It's the same with marketing which is why I teach the subject since it's constantly being updated, and the true job of any good marketer is to figure out the highest impact at a cost that fits into a budget that drives sales qualified leads. The result is as simple as that, which is why we always measure CAC as one of our top three primary metrics.  The complexity comes in the making of the choices.

marketing Success is making choices...and measuring everything!

The exciting part of our course is the ability to learn and experiment in real time.  The students can set in motion the marketing tactics of ads, social channels, PR and which blogs and which events have impact and be able to measure all of that in their Hubspot marketing platforms.  All the incoming students must be certified in Inbound Marketing at the beginning of the semester. 

Just some thoughts for a late Friday morning to think about over what looks like a spectacular summer weekend, which will find me walking across the street to the NH beach. 

At any time, if you want to discuss your own sales and marketing planning for the rest of this year, just connect with me for some quick ideas and feedback. There's no cost to a call or two, plus I love listening and talking about this new rapidly changing world of sales and marketing.  It's nothing like the old days of 2020!  In the meantime, take a look at our 2022 edition of "Writing the 2022 Winning Sales Plan" , or our Writing the Winning Marketing Plan in 2022.

www.derbymanagement.com  
Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts. 

https://www.tufts.edu/

Somewhere deep in the rhythm of the lives of all of us are the memories which awaken around this time of year of "back to school" whether that results from buying clothes and supplies for our own kids or the anxieties that came in our own lives with major shifts into a new building or going off to college as a freshman.  The rhythm of operating our businesses, especially as it relates to our employees, is often in sync with the rhythms of the school year.  

I've always loved music of any kind! I grew up on 1940's jazz, I love classic 60's rock (never missed a U.S. Stones concert), I tolerated disco, love early rap and have a special place in my head and heart for soul and funk.  

As an "older" salesguy, I've seen it all:

• Let's celebrate the end of the Q!
• Let's give it up for finally moving into the official summa'!
• Let's celebrate the freedom that we have which is the true meaning of the 4th!
• Let's kick back this weekend and just relax and dial it down a bit!

Needless to say, it's been more than a bumpy ride over the past six months, and I could list 10 points below that we are all very frustrated with and are complaining about, but I won't since I want to leave you with just one thought this Friday AM which is to simply to celebrate our freedoms and have some well-deserved fun...at least for a day or three.  

We're always constrained by time...or more accurately, the lack of it and the accompanying pressures of the lack of time! 

We think about it! We plan everything around it! We're constantly checking our phones, our watches, our calendars and everything else that defines our digital and analog worlds, and it always seems "there's never enough" and that we're "runnin' out of time"... all the time!

Ok, so we all know that time itself is finite.  It might be too long or way too short, but it's always going to be bound by nanoseconds, days, months quarters and years.  I have on a very visible shelf of my bookcase here in the office, a fossilized Nautiloid that is approximately 400 million years old just so that I can be frequently reminded to put into perspective the contributions of a 100-year life and my 18-hour workdays.   Most importantly, what I've come to realize about time is that I and you need to love what I do, and at this advanced time in my life, I simply love to work, to teach and to build companies.

9 Days

For those of us who sell stuff and manage others who sell stuff, there is always a daily, monthly, and, in the world of most businesses, the all-important quarterly clock that places points on the board.  We measure and are measured by others in comparison numbers to our quotas and what we are currently doing balanced against the metrics of last quarter or last year and a long list of other blocks of time.  For example, this coming Monday provides us with 9 more days left in the all-important second quarter, which is going to be interpreted by each of us as "just" or "not enough" or "plenty of".   I find that each of those words are typically defined by just how well a salesperson actually plans their own time over a longer period, but, in general, unfortunately most salespeople do not plan their time very well! 

• We get caught up in the complexities of selling without a formal sales process 
• We too often end up doing the job of what Marketing or Service should be doing 
• We simply do not take the time to plan out the 20 key selling days in any month

As a test of this, ask any salesperson today to show you their plan for the next 9 days or what their detailed plan looks like for July, and too often the response will be "I'm working on it".   This is not because salespeople do not work hard.  It's the exact opposite in that too many salespeople simply work without a detailed weekly, monthly and quarterly workplan.  

A 30-60-90 Day Plan

Right now, all of us are focused on finishing the Q and then most probably our primary focus will be on what we're going to be doing for the 4th!   Next weekend, on the 25th, is actually a perfect time to rough out the architecture of what a broad outline of your 90-day sales plan would look like.

• How many actual selling days will there be in each month?
• Then, subtract your own vacation days 
• Then, subtract days immediate to the 4th and Labor Day
• Be realistic about Fridays in the summer
• Blend in your business travel schedules for July and August
• Take out time for sales training and standard weekly/monthly sales meetings

Now plan out what you have left around your own quota and specific sales objectives for the quarter.  That's the easier part. Then take what's left and break that available time down into weekly plans based on your specific monthly quota objectives.  That's where the rubber hits the road!  For more details, click on our "Writing the Winning Sales Plan in 2022", or just connect directly with me at any time for some quick pointers of how to do this. 

To put work/life balance of time into perspective, here's an interesting article from the WSJ this week: 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-have-only-so-much-time-are-you-using-it-right-11655043558

Have a great day selling today and a superb Father's Day Weekend! 

After a three-hour dead-stop traffic jam on Route 2 late Wednesday afternoon trying to get to Vermont, I simply gave up, turned around and headed back to Boston, so it's the NH beach this weekend and not the VT hills. 

At any time, if you want to discuss your own sales and marketing planning for the next 30 or 90 days or the rest of this year, just connect with me for some quick ideas and feedback. There's no cost to a call or two, plus I love listening and talking about this rapidly changing world of Sales.  

www.derbymanagement.com  

Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts. 

I'm on the NH beach this weekend for a couple of reasons: