Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

And so, the rhythm of the fall has begun....

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales boot camp

Back to school, back to work, and back to all of the craziness and excitement between now and the end of the year closing deals and beginning the 2015 planning process.

Offsites with the team for a day or two at the Marriott, mini sessions in the big conference room out near the lobby, and then countless push & pull "discussions" with the accounting guys who always seem to be single minded-more results with less expense.  Maybe it's just part of earning the CFO badge, but, as keepers of the budget, CFOs orchestrate the annual dance trying to balance greater revenue growth while keeping expenses in check.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, sales training, strategic planning

As we think about the way-too-rapidly-approach to Labor Day...

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales tools, sales culture

 

Tags: Sales Optimization, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales tools, selling, selling skills, sales training, sales plans, sales listening, sales producitivity

Been an interesting summer so far what with lots of hospital visits, more docs than I want to know, surgery and now recuperating through Labor Day.  As my Facebook friends know, I decided to reward making it through the surgery and receiving very good news from pathology by buying a new Corvette Stingray.  Seemed to be fitting in keeping with the whole beach and ocean thing, plus I've always wanted to own a sports car.  Not to worry, the garage still houses the Subaru Outback and the Acura MDX since the Stingray will never see one flake of snow or ever travel on an ice covered road.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales and marketing best practices, sales effectiveness, sales management training

Sometimes we make this strategic planning stuff much too difficult, too mysterious and too complex to be useful in the real, rough and tumble world of scaling a profitable growth business. 

Tags: sales and marketing best practices, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales management training, business planning, strategic planning, improving sales productivity

At the firm, we have the privilige of working one-on-one with hundreds of heads of sales and CEOs every year.  It's exciting and complex work that often comes down to discussing, assessing and implementing  a series of best practices that are heavily based in metrics and data.  From all of these interactions, there appear to be two or three priority concerns that these execs have in common regarding the management of their companies, and I've listed them below in priority order:  

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training

The day after the last hours of the last day of the last month of the all important second quarter.

Tags: sales coaching, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales coach

To the uninitiated, the managers who never actually sold anything, the presidents who did not climb up the rungs from entry-level sales positions to become the #1 salesperson, and to the operations managers who regard salespeople as a necessary evil, the presumption is that money drives success in salespeople.  

Tags: sales coaching, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales effectiveness, sales producitivity, sales culture, sales boot camps

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement