Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

If you're confused about the direction of the current job market, there's a reason for that given the weekly changes on tariffs and immigration, the unanswered questions raised by the recent legislation and the unknowns of the wars in Israel and Ukraine.  All issues with serious consequences, which, of course, leads to business uncertainties which directly results in delays on hiring decisions. Underlying any discussion on today's job market is the fact that while the overall unemployment rate is little changed since May, the number of unemployed has risen each month since February, the longest streak since 2009.  

We have always had the privilige of living in the the United States and believing in its foundational truths even though too often we have been divided because of ...

1 Day Left in the Quarter: The Art & Science of Closing Deals When Time Is Running Out

Actually, the origins of Friday, the 13th are complex, a mix of both realities and myths:

The date itself is an extension of the fear of the number 13, known as paraskevidekatriaphobia, which was heavily popularized by fiction writers back to the 19th and 20th centuries and extending, of course, by our own love of the 1980 horror flick, Friday the 13th...and its many haunting extensions. 

The date is shrouded with many myths...or at least unknowns.  There's the actual number 13 traced back to several sources such as Judas who supposedly was the 13th guest at the Last Supper before betraying Jesus. In medieval times, the actual day of Friday was thought to be an unlucky day to begin any important work.   

The reality is evidenced in events such as that on Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the mass arrest of the Knights Templar. Hundreds of these powerful medieval knights were imprisoned and many were later executed.

With that as background, and since, in fact, it is Friday, the 13th, let me shift to the many myths surrounding the profession of Sales since most of these end up costing salespeople unnecessary time, but more importantly are on the wrong side of the equation for building trust and value creation with the prospect.  

This morning after a 95-degree day in Boston where I was yesterday doing booth duty with the DurraPanel team, one of our new very exciting investments, I was thinking in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, as to the various interpretations as to when the summa' begins:

It was a picture-perfect day two weeks ago for Tufts' Commencement!  Perfect weather!  Perfect timing!  Perfect Goodbyes!   Always a memorable time of happiness and thanks, certainly tears of joy and separation, and always a bit of fear balanced by the excitement of the unknowns for both those graduates who have jobs and more so for those who have not yet landed that perfect mix of work, location and compensation. 

Gotta hand it to the Celtics for their hard work, their athleticism, their perseverance and just true grit, but with Friday night's final score, we're on the sidelines watching the rest of the playoffs.  Playing the game to win is the very nature of every sport, and it's also the core essence of every activity that we engage in as professional salespeople. 

You want to win, you gotta' play to win which means that if you're behind right now halfway through the quarter, you may want to think about changing up your baseline drills for success. 

Here's a few simple, but directly impactful ideas to try out this beautiful Monday morning: 

• Every month: Update your written team playbook by getting everyone on the team directly involved.
  A playbook is not your annual sales plan that you architected last December. This is a living, breathing document that's frequently revisited and updated with the team at the beginning of every month. We've been insisting on these now for a few years, and the direct impact has been amazing.  
  
• Every week:
  -Hold one-hour early AM training drills on one or two specific tactics.
  -Personally connect for 15 minutes with 1 successful person who inspires you.
  -Read 1 technical article written in 2024-2025 on what it takes to be successful in Sales.
  
  
• Every day:
  -Think like a customer first, not a salesperson selling anything.
  -Focus on what you can do to drive direct business value for your customers.
  -Begin each day by verbalizing out loud why you're the best salesperson.
  -Start with activities that energize you-maybe it's exercise or listening to a podcast on the drive.
  -Dig into tracking the math in detail: every play, every conversion and every score. 

Nothing is more definitive than the scorecard at the end of the season for any professional sport. Right now, with the wicked one-point loss for the Celtics to the Knicks on Wednesday night, they're in a tough come-from-behind situation for Saturday afternoon's game at MSG. The absolute metrics of the losses are bad enough, but the giving up of 20-point leads in both games says that there's something terribly wrong with the team.   Metrics tell it all...all the time!

It's been an extraordinary semester at Tufts!!!