With the jobs report out yesterday, it’s better than good news on the for-profits side of the picture. Really stellar results, and should supply enough fodder for the Marketing King sitting in the Oval Office to move through the mid-term elections without doing too much (more) damage to the Democrats.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: the economy, small business management, economic stimulus
It’s been a great summer. Lots of work; lots of time off and a great opportunity to plan ahead a bit for the upcoming crazy season of September through the rest of the year.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: sales management, sales management effectiveness, management, leadership, strategic planning
Movin’ The Needle: Lead Gen Connections in a Sales 2.0 World
Posted by
Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Aug 12, 2010
Gone (and buried, hopefully) are the days of running back to your desk after a trade show with a hand full of business cards and sitting down to make semi-cold calls and then entering basic data into either ACT or Goldmine. Both good basic sales automation tools- back in the day-when the alternative was an over-stuffed Rolodex spilling out hundreds of cards in all shapes and colors with coded notes scribbled everywhere that sometimes only the CIA could interpret.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, improved sales management, Sales quota, sales training
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at the breakfast counter at the Rye General Store, where I bike most mornings when I’m at the beach, and I looked up from my Globe to see Dottie sitting at the opposite end of the counter. Dottie and I grew up together at the beach pretty much from our earliest childhood years through high school since our parents had cottages right next to one another. After we both bumbled through the normal awkwardness of not having seen one another for 35 plus years, we quickly connected on spouses, jobs, kids and kids’ kids, and then got down to the interesting stuff of what had happened to the pods of kids that we grew up and surfed with.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, improved sales management, Sales quota, sales training
Just What is Price Waterhouse Coopers Smoking?
Posted by
Jack Derby, Head Coach on Sat, Aug 07, 2010
Price Waterhouse Coopers Press Release: August 5, 2010 – The latest edition of the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Manufacturing Barometer reports that optimism about the U.S. economy is down slightly from last quarter, but still shows strength with almost half (45 percent) of U.S. industrial manufacturers optimistic about the next 12 months, according to the Q2 2010 report. Hiring plans made a significant jump in Q2 2010. Over the next 12 months, 47 percent of panelists plan to add employees to their workforces, up 20 points from last quarter.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: the economy, price waterhouse coopers, jobs, economic stimulus
For years now, I’ve talked, lectured, cajoled and beaten my salesguys into submission with The Derby Law of 3,000. In a nutshell, The Derby Law says that if you work 60 hours a week (I wish that I could find that job!), which is 3,012 hours, you immediately lose 25% due to holiday, vacations, and sick time. Without going into numbing detail, you lose another 40% of the remaining time due to non-sales activities since our data from now thousands of salespeople says that only 57% of thier available time is spent both preparing for and actually making the sales call. All of this boils down to around 1,300 hours to actually sell…and now my question, as a manager, should be just how effective can I make my time and the time of my salespeople? It would be great if I could hem 90% effective, which would be perfect, but sadly impossible. If, on the other hand, they’re only 50% effective with the time they have available, then I have a really big problem. 50% would be an impossible situation to resolve. Might as well resign right away.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, improved sales management, Sales quota, sales training
Movin’ The Needle: Incorporate the Three R’s This Summer
Posted by
Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Jul 14, 2010
Re-Plan, Reduce, Re-Create
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
In her 1967 hit, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Aretha Franklin takes these Otis Redding lyrics to a new dimension as she blasts out “Re, Re, Re, Respect” in the middle of the song on her way to making this tune a landmark in the feminist movement, and what is often considered to be one of the best songs of the R&B era. I love music-any kind, any genre-from Timberlake to Usher to Eminem, to 40’s Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey, but Aretha’s song has a special place in my tune-filled head, so it’s not unusual when I’m truly relaxed to find that some deeply hidden player in my sub consciousness suddenly just switches on and plays “RESPECT”.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales effectiveness, selling, selling skills
Two weeks ago, I led the deal team to sell Hybricon, one of the companies where I was a director, to Curtis Wright, a multi billion dollar global corporation. A perfect match between the businesses and a great deal for everyone. This now brings my board activity down to six private companies, plus the time I put in as a director of two not for profit business associations. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t, and is about consistent with what I’ve done for the past 20 years including being a director of a public company.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Movin’ the Needle – How Fast to Step on the Gas?
Posted by
Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Jun 17, 2010
Last week I was able to combine visiting one of my most engaging customers, Lake Sunapee Bank in the picture-perfect town of Newport, NH, with talking to my favorite economists, Brenda.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales effectiveness, selling, selling skills
