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

A Miserable Joy

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Apr 13, 2010

Doc Rivers was quoted on ESPN where he was asked about his career in coaching the Celtics, and he described it as “a miserable joy”, and anyone who has been a student of either pro basketball or became caught up in the most recent excitement of March Madness, knows exactly what this means. The cliffhanger of Duke’s final win in the NCAA championships this year, and the stunning upset of Kansas’ unexpected loss a couple of weeks ago bring all coaches to the point of either tearing their hair out- the misery- or basking in the glory of the final win and its accompanying praise -the joy.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales management effectiveness, improved sales management

Jack’s Vermont: Misery & Joy

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Apr 13, 2010

Tuesday, 4:30 AM

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales management effectiveness, improved sales management

Quarter by Quarter

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Mar 17, 2010

The good news is that, as a firm, we’ve had a very busy Q1. With budgets in place, almost every customer we’ve worked with in the first quarter held either business or sales planning sessions to think through and create detailed tactical plans. In some cases, these plans focused on Q1, while the majority of them typically detailed just the first half of the year. Only in a few companies, did we bother to define the second half of the year except to note the general financial plan assumptions that led up to the 2010 budget.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales management effectiveness, improved sales management

Jack’s Vermont: Ain’t Spring…yet

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Mar 17, 2010

This Past Sunday, 4:00 AM

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Defining Sales Management-Just what is power?

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Sun, Mar 14, 2010

The issue of “power” was front and center with me all this weekend. With two violent winter storms converging, the coast of NH was slammed with hurricane level, sheering winds and three days of flooding rain. All of which resulted in the loss of power at the house from Thursday through Saturday.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales management effectiveness, improved sales management

Grades

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Mon, Feb 15, 2010

As everyone knows who reads these posts, in my “spare time”, I teach business planning and marketing as a lecturer at MIT and as a marketing professor at Tufts. I love the work and student involvement, plus it provides an excellent opportunity to integrate concepts into the real world of sales and marketing tactics, both for my students and for our companies at the firm since often they become case studies in the classes.

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Tags: Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness

Trackers & Scouts

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Feb 10, 2010

This column this month is a continuation of the thought process from January’s “Hawks & Doves” discussion that drew a large number of comments. Hopefully, this will do the same since it is meant to be of a “Sales Tips” piece.

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Tags: sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, selling, selling skills, strategic planning

Jack’s Vermont: Tracks

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Feb 10, 2010

Coyotes & Other Critters

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Tags: sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, selling, selling skills, strategic planning

Blocking & Tackling or Muscling Up?

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Mon, Feb 01, 2010

With a solid January put to bed, everyone seems to be taking a deep breath, sitting back and taking a concentrated assessment of just how they’re going to accomplish their 2010 objectives now that the 1st month dust has settled. The board has now approved the annual business plans, departmental budgets have been confirmed, sales meeting kickoffs are behind us, and it now comes down to the hard work of day-to-day departmental management and Blocking & Tackling week-by-week through the year. Right?

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Tags: sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, selling, selling skills, strategic planning

My Favorite Economist

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Jan 29, 2010

Very early yesterday morning, I drove to the picture-perfect New England town of Newport, New Hampshire. Since I had an early morning planning session with a key customer, I wanted to arrive early so that I could go over my notes, plus I wanted to talk to my favorite economist and her reaction to the Wednesday night Obama speech.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, marketing management