Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

At 8:30 this morning, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the employment report. My guess is that it's going to show that hiring slowed in January while the unemployment rate was flat.  Nothing unexpected there since I've been listening carefully to our clients since October with a steadily increasing number of comments of "let's see what happens with the elections", and much more loudly in January: "let's see how the new Trump directives shake out".  Since one of our mantras with our customers is to only focus on those things that you yourself can control, and since most of us cannot control these larger events, what does come to mind this morning is an opportunity during this graduation season to hire the best seniors coming out of the universities that surround our companies:

I've been involved with HubSpot and therefore with Dan Tyre since the beginning;

Every week, I shuffle between living on the NH beach, working in Boston, teaching at Tufts and spending weekends in Vermont.  Lots of miles on the car, a good time for customer and student calls, and always an opportunity to think about planning ahead.  In a month like January  when we're kicking off sales meetings and working through the details of territory plans, account plans and commission plans, since I'm a planning kinda guy, I thought I'd have some fun this morning and introduce you to the art and science of what it takes to plan ahead when one heats their house with a woodstove which is what I do in Vermont. 

A very Happy New Year!  2025 promises to be a year of solid business growth, but as usual, a number of unexpected speed bumps as we speed along the highway. In addition to making personal new year resolutions while formalizing our business sales and marketing plans, it's also a time when many managers at all levels begin to think about possible job or career changes.  It's just the normal rhythm of the year and planning out the year ahead.   As a result, those individuals do the normal thing and reach out confidentially to their friends and business colleagues, dust off their resume and send an email vaguely worded as "if you see something, please keep me in mind."   The absolute worst waste of time in trying to market yourself!  

Just as in all sports, nothing is more measurable than our end of year scorecards for how we did overall in our businesses and especially in our measurements of revenue and bottom line.  Everything is on some sort of a scoreboard, and whether it's the Celtics, Bruins and Patriots, or it's in our yearend results to our shareholders and investors, or it's in the semester's grading for my students, there's no sense in playing any game, studying in any course or working in any company without a scorecard!  It would be like playing tennis without a net.

Wicked cold this AM in Vermont.  Deep snow in the yard out by the barn assuming I could see the barn, but it's pitch-black outside at 6:00 AM.

Stratton Moutain's up the road a piece and totally open after two months of snowmaking and a ton of natural snow so far this season. 

Bottom line on every January:

No surprise anywhere since "It's the winta' in New England", and it's supposed to be wicked cold and snow in January.  Just like holding sales meetings in January!

Wicked cold this AM here at the NH beach just trying to figure out whether it's today or tomorrow to make the weekly 3-hour trek to the much colder Vermont.  Right now, a heavy lean toward tomorrow so that I can clean up in the office, get a few work things finished, complete this semester's grading and finish the last very rough chapter of a book idea I'm working on.  Just by typing out those words, I convinced myself that the journey over the river and through the woods will happen at sunrise tomorrow.   3' of snow on the ground at the VT house in the valley, with tons more on the hill. 

This Monday morning marks the beginning of the last 5 selling days of 2025.  After that, everyone...both buyers and sellers...are focused on the holidays and visiting the malls, decorating the house or trying to figure out which is the best day to travel.  Even if people were planning to "check in" with work between next Monday and the end of December, it's highly unlikely that any major deals are going to come together then.

The very good news is that we have 5 days to move opportunities and bring them to a close before the end of the day on Friday, and there's one critical sales tactic, I would like you to consider and hopefully activate at 9:00 this morning.  That tactic is all about positive affirmation and getting your head in gear for the 10 and 12 hour days ahead.  

I've been doing this for decades, and it works most of the time. 

• The actual words need to be of your own choosing 
• They should be uber-positive 
• You should say them out loud to yourself
• You should repeat them

In my own case whether I am prepping for a sales call, walking into a classroom or giving a speech, I say out loud:  "This is going to be a great day".  I say it slowly and out loud to myself and I repeat it 7 times.  Why 7?  I learned the tactic from a well-known NBA player, and that's what he did, and I've followed his advice.

Recently, I've added "Future Forward" if I find I'm particularly frustrated and tied up too much in the past.  Again, it's that reaffirmation stated out loud that snaps my head back in the game!

That's it for today!. I'm off to a 9:00 sales call.  Make the best of these 5 days!

working on your 2025 Marketing & Sales plans!

For a few ideas on your own sales and marketing planning for 2025, click here for our "Writing the Winning Sales Plan, and Writing the Winning Marketing Plan, outlining ideas on structure, models, process funnels, productivity tools and how to recruit, hire and onboard the best. 

Give me a call and let's discuss having us facilitate tuning up your 2025 planning process in January. This picture comes from one of our planning sessions for our customers we held at Stratton. Nothing like a quick call to talk through your current thinking for your 2025 planning . 

As everyone who knows me, I'm an over-the-top planning kind of guy 7 days a week. It's how I'm wired working with customers, teach Sales & Marketing at Tufts and how I live my life. 

Arriving in snowbound VT last night around 8:00, my first thought was to figure out how I could straighten out the not-so-perfect snow plowing from the 18 inches of snow.  I had to rationalize plowing perfection balanced against the need to get the wood stove started to warm the house from its 50-degree sleep. The wood stove plus not incurring the wrath of my neighbors across the field again, from the noise of Big Red, won out.

Some rules don't change in the rhythm of business or being a professor at Tufts!