Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

Just about 40 days!

Here we are already at the end of September! 

 "The A-Team" shows up at 7:00 AM tomorrow for the first of the fall "Big Cleans" in Vermont.  A team of four to six men and women now in their late 20's who began this tradition with me when they were students at Green Mountain College up the road a piece in Poultney. 

Very coincidentally, Green Mountain has come up numbers of times in my Vermont life.  Decades ago, it was my first college teaching gig long before MIT and Tufts. 

Poultney is a classic example of a picture-perfect small Vermont town, and it's where my father, grandfather and GGF and GGGF lived for generations of being entrepreneurs.  It's in the blood!

With the leaf peeping season well underway, Saturday's A-Team will be back again at the end of October to do the final clean-up in the woodlot and stack the three cords that will get me through the winta'.  In Vermont, the winta' comes early, and as my grandfather used to say, "there's 9 months of winta', 1 of mosquitos, and two of just bad sleddin'."

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

Fall officially starts tomorrow, but in my trip to Vermont house last weekend, it was obvious that the rhythm of the seasons was in full cycle which is great since the fall season provides 25% of the tourist income for the state.   Vermont is absolutely in full rhythm for the fall:

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, SEO, Inboound, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

It's been a great summer! 

Sure, like you, I've had way too much work, a couple of speedbumps here and there, the cancelled long-planned August trip back to Tanzania, and, of course, today the reality of the seasonal rhythm that shuts that door hard on the summa of '23!  Different from my buddy, Red, whose comic strip I read whenever I can, the fall is a great time to be back at work and at school, to be healthy and looking forward to the busiest time in any business year, 

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

Rhythm

Most everything in business has a definitive rhythm.  Every quarter is marked by various events of annual planning, budgeting, sales kickoffs, trade shows, and of course...summa' vacations, which no matter how carefully we plan around them, they always seem to impact our sales forecasts with delays.  

Tags: entreprenurial, Sales Best Practices, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, Derby Entrepreneurship Center

The Dog Days of Summa are here in full force, and what are we already hearing since last week's turn of the calendar page? 

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, best sales practices;, business planning meetings, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

We've all heard the adage about the better mousetrap and buyers beating a path to the door.  In fact, the U.S. patent office over the years has issued more than 4,400 patents for "better" mousetraps, and my guess is that over my years of owning houses, my choices always seem to come down to two: the old-fashioned, dangerous, lose-your-finger, spring traps and the myriad of make-you-cringe newer glue traps.  4,400 ideas reduced to just a couple of choices and actual buying decisions typically being made in the aisles or on the websites of Home Depot and ACE based on colors, brand names, fonts, images of dead critters, and anonymous reviews citing "better, "faster" and "more humane".   

Tags: HubSpot Tips, how to write a marketing plan, Making Tough Choices, how to write a sales plan, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, Teaching entrepreneurship, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

When I was in junior high school, it was obvious to me and to my parents that I was not doing well in math.  As a result, every Saturday morning was spent at the house of Mr. Sampson, the head of the high school math department, who served as my tutor taking me from basic addition to more complicated algebraic formulas resulting in a slow rewiring of my brain.  Math Saturdays took place all year including when the family returned from the beach in August, and I still remember walking back and forth to Mr. Sampson's house in the sweltering heat of the summer.  To a large degree, the rewiring process worked...although not so well according to my CFO friends.  

Tags: Sales Best Practices, HubSpot Tips, Inboound, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning

Welcome to the Summa! 

Just a superb holiday period last week, as I took unfair advantage of the fact that I live on the NH beach by lugging my book-filled beach bag out the door every afternoon and laying claim to my time-tested perfect location of sand and surf.  

- Perfect for catching up on my long list of required reading assignments
- Necessary for the final edits to the fall syllabus which went out on the 5th
- Relaxing from being at the tip of the spear for the last quarter.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, Sales quota, Sales Leadership in the Revolution, Tufts Entrepreneurship, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, Teaching at Tufts University, 2023 Business Planning

In both my Marketing course and in my Science of Sales course, the process is to involve six real-life companies in each course who have a need to develop either a detailed sales or marketing plan.  Six juniors and seniors, with balanced experience, are assigned to each project prior to the semester beginning with specific assignments to be read and Hubspot certification to be completed prior to the first class.  Then for the period of the next 13 weeks, there is content supplied by me, by my TAs and especially from my alums who have over the years now moved into sales or marketing management positions and come back to class to instruct.  The teams work with their management on a weekly basis with guidance from me and our instructors producing a final detailed plan around the objectives of their manager who ends up providing 40% of their overall grade. 

• It's deeply detailed, 
• It's complex as we teach a new language, technology and math
• It's a heavy time commitment with 2x-3x more time spent outside the classroom than in
• Most importantly it's real life where the experience of Sales changes constantly
• And then, there's the side benefit that the students are often offered jobs

The syllabus and the six projects go to the students on July 5th and choices will be made within the following 48 hours, and I have been working through the syllabus with my TAs for the fall, I thought about one of the more impactful presentations made at the very beginning of this past spring's semester, which was done by Brian Bresee, Director of Sales for Hubspot's NA Partner Program and an alum from this course.  To give applause and superb thanks to my other 10 alum instructors, everyone did a superb job !!! of instructing digging deep into processes, roles, technology, and compensation planning!  What Brian provided in that second class was to give a framework of basic simplicity to what is one of the new rules of the Science of Sales: Prioritization, Personalization and Persistence!  Three critical words to think about today as we now are on the final countdown for the end of the Q on Friday. 

 

Ever since the Harvard Business Review woke up 10 years ago to the fact that there's basic science in the world of Sales and that buying decisions are not made as the result of sports tickets and Dunkin' delivered by JoeyBagaDonuts, there's been a wave of sales terms of Sales Optimization, Sales Enablement, Customer Journey Mapping, Social Selling, Omnichannel Sales, and now, of course Sales AI.  All of these new phrases simply come down to the basics that as a sales manager, I simply want to provide my team with improved productivity and efficiency while providing our customers with improved value.  Higher productivity on one hand and higher value on the other!   

Just a couple of short comments this morning as we stare down the end of the Q in two days!

Good selling today!

 2023 SALES PLANNING 

Check out our updated sales productivity site page.  Just page down to get our new edition of Writing the Winning Sales Plan for 2023.  Or you can just email me, and I will send you a free copy.  Connect with me at any time for some quick ideas and feedback. There's never a cost for a call or two, plus I love listening and talking about Sales & Marketing.   

www.derbymanagement.com  
Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts.

 

 

 

 

Tags: Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

With the end of the Q just eight days away (don't plan on anyone working on the 30th before the July 4th weekend/holiday week), it's time to plan the second half of the sales year in terms of strategic focus and where I'm going to focus my management time and my limited budget.  Do I focus on ...

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, Making Tough Choices, 4th of July, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans