Jack Derby, Head Coach
Jack Derby, Head Coach, Derby Management
As founder and Head Coach of Derby Management, Jack Derby and his managers provide strategic planning, and sales and marketing optimization services to growth and middle market companies. Prior to forming Derby Management, Jack served as CEO of Mayer Electronics Corporation, President of CB Sports, President of Litton Industries Medical Systems, CEO of Datamedix Corporation and President of Becton Dickinson Medical Systems.
For his work in the entrepreneurial community, Jack was named to Mass High Tech’s All Star Team. He also received the distinguished Pro Bono Publico award from the Smaller Business Association of New England, the Meritorious Service Award for the Association for Corporate Growth, and the Vincent Fulmer Distinguished Service Award from the MIT Enterprise Forum. He is a frequent speaker at numerous sales meeting and business organizations including the Association for Corporate Growth and the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, where he was Chairman of both organizations.
He is a Professor of the Practice at Tufts University, where he teaches two courses: “Entrepreneurial Marketing” and “The Art & Science of Sales”. In 2015, Jack received the Henry and Madeline Fisher Award given to the best teacher on campus, an award that is voted by the graduating students and the faculty. He is the first faculty member from the Entrepreneurial Leadership Studies Program to be given this recognition.
He is also a lecturer at MIT, where for the past nineteen years, he has taught classes in business planning and marketing to undergraduate and graduate students in the Mechanical Engineering Department.
Jack is currently an active board member in a number of companies, including the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Accounting Management Solutions, Aviant Hospice, Brainshark Corporation, Chase Corporation, Rome Snowboards, Reiser Inc, and Tufts University’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Studies Advisory Board. He is also the past Chairman of Common Angels Ventures, one of the most active seed and early stage investment funds, now rebranded by Jack and management to Converge Ventures.
There's so much written about sales leadership, my eyes gloss over.
By now, I've listened to countless speakers, including the legendary Zig Ziglar, viewed hundreds of videos, and probably read a couple of hundred books and who knows how many blogs on the subject of sales leadership. The problem is that most of the training advice focuses on the motivational, which too often disappears into the wind as soon as the speech or the chapter has ended other than the notes taken and the highlights yellowed.
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Tags:
closing sales,
business tools,
best sales practices;
By now, I figure I've taken over 2,400 trips to Vermont over the years traveling back and forth from either Boston or NH. At three hours, the trip takes about the same amount of time from either starting point, and the distance evens out between 150 and 180 miles.
The problem, as the Boys on the Bench down at the Winhall General Store frequently tell me is that "you can't get there from here" whenever I mention that I'm leaving the mountains to drive to the NH beach...and they're right. There's no easy way to go east and west between Vermont and New Hampshire, and every trip presents a variety of decisions that ultimately end up just frustrating me.
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Tags:
sales productivity,
Sales Optimization,
sales effectiveness,
sales tools,
improved sales management,
sales management training,
closing sales,
how to close sales,
best sales practices;
Trust that you finished the month on Plan and are now racing toward the all-important end of the quarter. I always enjoy this second quarter since it's that perfect time of year to...
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Tags:
closing sales,
business planning,
business coaching,
business plans,
best sales practices;
The last post of "Chicken or Egg" produced a fair number of responses to the question often posed in startups of...
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Tags:
best sales practices;
In this blog, I'm looking to you for a bit of guidance and a few ideas...
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Tags:
best sales practices;
I was at a board meeting a few weeks ago as a new director for a well established public company. As I sat there at my first meeting thinking about boards, board roles, board interactions and a myriad of other director related stuff, I reflected on what I've learned over the years about being a director.
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Tags:
Sales Optimization,
Sales Management Best Practices,
sales management,
sales effectiveness,
sales enablement,
selling skills,
Sales quota,
sales training,
sales listening
Every morning, I leave the beach very early and make the one hour trek into Boston so that I'm able to be at the club when it opens for my daily workout . Good to start the day off with a bit of structure, plus the drive gives me the opportunity to think through the day while listening to Bloomberg News from London. For the last couple of days, a good portion of those news stories have been about the massive Greek debt problem which everyone, except the Greek government, seems to understand. Pretty simple problem to understand-less than 50% of the population doesn't pay any taxes. All I know is that this problem, created by a second-rate country 10,000 miles away, has had a negative effect on everyone's stock portfolio and is a speeding train wreck headed for the cliff.
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Tags:
sales productivity,
Sales Optimization,
sales management effectiveness,
sales management coach,
sales planning,
sales management training,
sales plans,
sales management boot camp
Most mornings when I'm getting ready for the day at the gym after working out, I find myself shaving in the sink area near Dr. Steve, a world-renowned surgeon. Over the years, I've gotten to know him very well, and recently he's been a wonderful sounding board for me as I maneuvered my way through the maze of hospital procedures, protocols and processes.
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Tags:
Sales Optimization,
Sales Best Practices,
Sales Management Best Practices,
sales management effectiveness,
sales effectiveness,
sales enablement,
sales management training,
sales optomization,
sales jobs,
sales management boot camp
One of my best friends, Carolyn, decided to make a mid-life career change recently and enter the world of selling commercial and residential real estate in Vermont. A tough job with lots of competition plus the vagaries of working in a seasonal resort.
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Tags:
sales productivity,
Sales Optimization,
sales management effectiveness,
selling,
sales management training,
selling skills,
Sales quota,
sales training,
sales plans,
sales management boot camps
