All adjustments, that if made now, will have a huge impact on the September through December period when you'll need all of the cylinders of your well-oiled machine working together perfectly.
My recommendation last week was to have the senior management team, or the sales management leadership, take "a time out" for one or two days this or next week, while the results of May are still fresh in your mind, and you're feeling the heat of getting to the end of June..on time and on plan. The idea is to take a breather for a day-as a team, simply because more heads are better than one-and step out from your personal craziness for just 10 hours.
"Eat the Frog" first since it's most likely going to be the most difficult sales planning issues that you need to solve. At meetings like this, there simply can't be left any "elephants in the room; or "800 pound gorillas" lurking under the conference room table ready to rip someone's head off if they should bring up...
Eat the Frog by putting the most difficult issues on the table first, and deal with them head on...and completely
Since if you're not dealing with the frogs, the elephants and the gorillas, you need to ask yourself..
GOOD SELLING with three more weeks to go in the quarter!
Have specific sales questions that you want to bounce off me or any of our other coaches, just email me, and we'll set up a time to talk.
Head Coach
Derby Management...for 25 years
-Sales & Marketing Productivity Experts
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Box 171322, Boston, MA 02117
617-292-7101
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http://www.brainshark.com/derbymanagement/vu?pi=zEAzcyC9XzFFz0
A syllabus along with the project outlines is sent to the students in early July with the requirement that they do research on the companies and quickly define in writing before they come to the first class during the first week of September, exactly why they should be accepted into the class to work on any of these particular projects. This is a very desired course, and currently, I have 46 students signed up among the categories of Registered, the official "Wait List" and then the longer, unofficial "Wait-Wait List"., I need to bring total attendance down to no more than 32 by the end of the first class in September, and the summer homework of reviewing the company assignments, doing research on the companies and completing reading assignments constitute the means through which I measure the motivation and commitment of students coming into the course.
The structure of the process always works, and, most importantly, very often this course becomes the most influential in the students' college experience, simply because of the fact that it introduces them to the inner workings of senior management teams who are dealing with the real life experiences of launching new products, assessing market opportunities and creating multi-faceted marketing campaigns.
Paige Dahlman, this extraordinary student from last semester, who is now a just-graduated senior and has been the Captain of the Tufts Squash Team, writes..." I can easily say that this was my most rewarding class at Tufts". Each semester I get a number of similar notes, which, I hope points a little bit to my teaching style and to the content, but, I know that the most impactful component of this course is its unique structure of directly connecting bright students to work with senior management teams who have a need to explore a new marketing or product idea.
Recently, I was awarded the School of Engineering Teacher of 2014-2015, but the award really goes to the students and to the unique structure of this class working with real companies and management.
We've now completed 84 projects covering a wide spectrum of markets, projects and company sizes which have ranged from Raytheon and Fidelity, to startup tech, healthcare and apparel companies, to well-established consumer companies, such as Paytronix and Stratton Resort, both of whom were looking for the unique perspectives of Millennials. One company has returned six times, four companies, four times...and so on.
And no one has been disappointed!
This deadline of June 15th does not mean that the project details need to be completed by that time. You have until September 1st do that.
What I do need to do is to be able to send to the students in early July a syllabus along with a package of information that includes...
Both for you in the added depth that you will achieve in your marketing plans, and for the students as they become introduced to the senior management from real world companies. In a number of cases, our students go on to work as interns and employees from their host companies.