Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

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...

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

Did you watch the Barbara Walters special Friday night?

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

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.
 

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

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...

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

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

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

Tags: Tufts university, Tufts ELS program, Tufts Gordon Institute, Tufts Marketing, Tufts internships

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.
 

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

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".

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

Each semester at Tufts, over a period of 13 weeks, I engage 30-35 students in a unique, hands-on, tools-based experience of preparing them for the real world of business in general and specifically the complexities of working in today's exciting environment of Marketing and Sales.  As a result, I...

Tags: Tufts university, Tufts ELS program, Tufts Gordon Institute, Tufts Marketing, Tufts internships