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.
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Recent Posts

The Criticality of Time...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Jun 05, 2014
  • -220 work days in the year
  • -"the best" sales people work 57 hours/week
  • -15%/week is the average time totally wasted
  • -only 57%/week spent on actual "selling"
  • -most deals take 6 calls & meetings to close
  • -most salespeople give up after 3 calls
  • -most salespeople create 65%+ of their own leads
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Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training

What's it all about?...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, May 29, 2014

As we wind down the 5th month of the sales year, and we're steaming ahead toward the end of the second quarter, it's a good time to take a deep breath this weekend and just answer this simple question...

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Tags: sales coaching, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management effectiveness, sales optomization, best sales practices;

Barbara Walters...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, May 22, 2014

Did you watch the Barbara Walters special Friday night?

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Tags: sales coaching, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales, sales plan process, sales enablement, sales tools, improving sales productivity

What's Your NBT as a Sales Athlete?

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, May 16, 2014

Perhaps you're a weekend athlete and chase the little white ball around on Saturdays. Maybe, you're on the other end of the spectrum like my friend, John Sohikian, back on the bike clocking 30 miles runs just two weeks after major surgery. James Geshwiler, one of the two Managing Directors of Common Angels, is out rowing on the Charles most mornings in every possible weather condition, including a little ice now and then.  Me?  I'm somewhere north of the center, in the gym promptly every weekday morning at 5, thinking through the day and typically counting the minutes until breakfast.
 

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales culture

Rising Tide Lifts All Boats...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, May 09, 2014

I had the pleasure on Monday of sitting through 12 account reviews at one of our customers. Solid experienced sales people, a brand name Boston-based company, established management-all good.  As one of the guys pointed out during his review of his ytd performance, "Sales cures all ills", and, of course he's correct, but...

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales effectiveness, sales enablement

Grading, Making Quota...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Apr 30, 2014

This is the final week! Or, more appropriately...this is Finals Week.

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Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, best sales practices;

So, you want to become a board member...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Apr 25, 2014

Maybe it's me, maybe it's the times, but a fair number of people approach me every year to ask how they might become a member of a board.

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I'm looking for a few good Tufts Sales-Marketing Projects-fall, 2014

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Apr 23, 2014
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Tags: Tufts university, Tufts ELS program, Tufts Gordon Institute, Tufts Marketing, Tufts internships

I am Strong...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Mon, Apr 21, 2014

When Hurricane Irene devastated Vermont, we became Vermont Strong!  We didn't wait for FEMA to show up to hand out blankets and food stamps.  That next day, we worked knee deep in the rivers with wheelbarrows and shovels to get Vermont back on the map. Even though 6 bridges had been totally torn away in the 30 miles between Brattleboro and Stratton, the road was open again in two weeks. Two years later, tens of thousands of Vermonters proudly display "We are Vermont Strong" license plates.
 

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales, sales management coach, sales effectiveness, sales tools, sales training, best sales practices;

Marketing for the Cure...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Apr 16, 2014

A friend of mine, David Meerman Scott, the definitive guru on Inbound Marketing and the author of the best selling The New Rules of PR & Marketing, just wrote The Marketing of the Moon.  Published by MIT Press, this fascinating book unfolds the story behind the story of the close collaboration of corporate America with the highest officials of government, with the leaders of the best technical universities and research centers and with the senior management of NASA to land a person on the moon.  

By the time John Kennedy announced in January, 1961 before a joint session of Congress the challenge that we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, detailed marketing and financial partnerships had long been struck with corporations like Disney and General Foods (just to name two) to market such diverse products such as TomorrowLand and Tang  All of this was part of the detailed marketing and sales campaigns that would be required to market the critical importance of space exploration to the American public.  As a result, over the decade, the government would end up spending hundreds of billions fueling NASA and diverting those dollars away from other programs.  And, all through those years, the American people remained highly supportive of the importance of this immense task.  By July, 1969, 94% of Americans were tuned into their televisions watching the first landing on the moon.  Space exploration was on the forefront of everyone's dreams after a decade of hard work, countless innovations and consistent marketing by the government and thousands of businesses as to the critical nature of "Winning the race to the moon".

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Tags: sales and marketing best practices, marketing, marketing for the cure, cure cancer now