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
April 21st marks the 118th running of the Boston Marathon. Considering the tragedy that occurred last year, this particular marathon will be steeped in pride and emotion as a record number of runners participate to show their support for the event and the runners, along with their respect for those who died and were injured in last year's horror.
Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training
Driving back from running one of our boot camps in Rochester last Friday, I decided to stop at the house in (the frozen tundra of) Vermont rather than make the drive even longer by continuing on to the NH beach. Looking at the house, as I drove in late Friday afternoon, I noticed that there were...
Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales optomization, sales boot camps
Monday morning I was reading what turned out to be a really stupid HBR article about "professionalism". It actually started with the interesting question of "Do your colleagues think you’re professional?", which got me to thinking about the perceptions that people have regarding salespeople in general. Unfortunately, the article then went on to attempt to tie "professionalism" to the way one decorates their cubicle and then tie that result into gender and race. Note to HBR: you really need to do a better job at screening your writers.
Tags: Sales Best Practices, sales coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management training, sales optomization, sales management boot camp, sales producitivity, sales boot camps
Last week I celebrated my xx birthday. No magic number. No big celebration. But, as a friend of mine from my daily high school email posse remarked... "Having birthdays is a whole lot better than not having them". James Geshwiler and Maia Heymann began our 8:00 Monday morning status call at Common Angels by singing "Happy Birthday". Mike Schumann, VP of Sales at Salsify, asked through Linked In how it felt to be 49? I responded, of course, that "I wouldn't know...yet." 70 of my FaceBook friends chimed in with best wishes and another couple of hundred through Linked In. And, yes, I did get two actual paper birthday cards...from the cats. And, oh yeah, I bought myself a car as a birthday gift.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales effectiveness, sales management training, sales training, sales boot camp, sales management boot camps
In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there was an interesting marketing article on Wheaties. Most of us grew up with the marketing tag line of "The Breakfast of Champions" ringing in our head along with pictures of Michael Jordan, Dorothy Hamil, Michael Phelps and similar top level athletes featured in full color on the outside of the box. Wheaties actually taste pretty good! The problem is that although they are an iconic 91 year old brand, they no longer sell very well.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales, sales enablement, sales effictiveness, sales boot camp
Recognition for this title to Seth Godin in his blog last Saturday. A Tufts grad, Seth has a knack for minimalism both in his blog content and in his persona. As I was reading his blog, immediately I thought of how important a statement this was for the sales people at most companies. And the reason for that are these disturbing facts below from a recent study at the Harvard Business School:
Tags: sales productivity, sales coaching, Sales Best Practices, sales, sales effectiveness, sales management boot camps
Now that we've settled into the actual competition of the Olympics and moved past the media distractions of uncompleted hotel rooms and relentless weather reports of melting snow, the pure athleticism in Sochi is just outstanding. World records and gold medals are decided in hundredths of a second after skiers and skeleton sleds plummet downhill at 80 miles an hour while hockey teams play repeated rounds of sudden death overtime. So far, this Olympics has been both exciting and heartwrenching (my snowboarding friend, Lindsey Jacobellis ,falling) to watch.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales tools, selling skills, sales training, sales management boot camp
