Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

Last Sunday I began my own rhythm of "The Summa' of '23" with my first official beach day.  Whenever I'm working out of the home office at the NH beach, days like today begin with a beach run of a couple of miles, but pure beach time is simply doing little to nothing except reading and walking the beach. 

There's a planned rhythm to my own process of pulling out the special beach blanket, unpacking the new spray cans of Trader Joe's Sunscreen, and packing the canvas beach bag with my i-Pad, articles I've printed out during the week. and survival snacks and a beverage. And all of that prep came together to a point of perfection on the perfect beach weather day last Sunday! 

All it took was a bit of planning, prep, a bit of process, and having the rhythm of having various right tools in the right place at the right time.  

 

Today with only 12 selling days left in the Q, the most successful salespeople have perfected their own selling rhythm to these 12 weeks of the quarter, the 20 days of June and the planned flow of the next 12 days.  

• There's a prep time over the weekend to fine tune the details for the upcoming week
• There's email and calling patterns to "the money hours" of every day
• There's scheduled online and F2F meetings with detailed prep already planned

Every successful salesperson is hyper attentive to their own time availability and matching that to the limited time of their customers.  One key Covid takeaway is that we know at every level that we all have very limited available time.  We also learned very successfully that well planned 30-minute zooms both in terms of personal efficiency and customer effectivity easily replaced the waste of two-hour drive times.  None of us, especially in today's financially cautious world, have any "extra" time, and by simply taking 15 minutes on a daily rolling basis looking out a week ahead of time to plan out the upcoming week and the balance of the month pays huge dividends...especially now halfway through the last month of the Q.  

 

Sales Process

If creating that daily/weekly/monthly rhythm creates a level of sales success by leveling out our 10-12-hour days, there is nothing more impactful in sales success than adopting the rhythm of one defined sales process which becomes "The Way" we sell. 

"The Way" then becomes the religion of how we sell. Every successful salesperson has their own sales process.  It's one of the reasons that they're successful, and they have honed that process over their years of selling. 

What's much more impactful for the entire company is taking those individual best practices of sales success and adopting a formal rhythm into a unified sales process for the entire sales team from BDRs to AEs to management as "The Way":

• Same process with the same 6-7 steps from Qualify to Close
• Same email, content, and presentation tools for specific steps
• Same required fluency in CRM use, analytics and immediate access to tools
• Same required skills training consistent among everyone on the team
• Same pride and culture of being on a winning team that has a rhythm and a plan 

Sounds too formal and too much work?   Check out our sales process tools since the math says otherwise with results of 20%-25% sales productivity improvements in just 9-12 months. 

HAVE A GREAT DAY SELLING TODAY!!!

Just some thoughts for tuning up your own rhythm ! 

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: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, closing sales, Selling Successfully in a Covid World, hiring sales people, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts, 2023 Business Planning, 2023 Sales Planning, 2023 Marketing Plans

This past Wednesday was the last class for the semester. 

What now remains are the final presentations from the six teams of juniors and seniors to the management of their respective companies.  This is a very demanding course in which I, my four TAs and seven outside lecturers, all alums from this course, provide deep technical content on the science of marketing structured around the student teams delivering full marketing plans based on the objectives provided by their companies.  The TAs and I provide 60% of the project grade while the senior management provides the remaining 40%.  For me, it's a perfect blend of introducing my students to the real world of business structured on the same sales and marketing principles of "Process-Tools-Technology-Math & People" that we use in our consulting practice.  If you're interested in participating in a marketing project for the fall semester, just connect with me.  All of this blends together perfectly with the added benefit that my students are able to select from 40-50 job offers each semester mostly from prior alums from this course.  

Tags: closing sales, Tufts marketing projects, free marketing projects from universities, student intern marketing projects, how to write a marketing plan, marketing planning, writing sales plans, delivering great presentations, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022businessplansuccess

Every day, as part of my routine, before or after a sunrise run on the NH beach or on the VT dirt road, I take a look at LI and FB birthdays of the people I'm connected with. 

Tags: sales effectiveness, closing sales, sales management boot camp, how to close sales, sales success, how to write a sales plan, writing sales plans

First, and most importantly this morning is to congratulate you on finishing the Q on plan! 

I never use the word "hopefully on plan", since "hope" has no place in today's fast-paced environment of Sales or Marketing.  It's always great, of course, to be "lucky" every once in a while, but that's like hitting Powerball last Wednesday night or hoping the Patriots win this Sunday, so I'm going to stick with congratulations for finishing the Q on plan!  

Tags: sales coaching, sales effectiveness, closing sales, how to close sales, best sales practices;, sales success, how to write a sales plan, writing sales plans

Gotta love April !!!   

Hard to believe, but here we are, one year later in a very different spring of positive outlooks and what will become a roaring economy on the back half of this year.  Still a bit stressed, but much less so, and, as sales pros, we're always thinking through what the quarter ahead is going to look like. This is always the excitement and the challenge of being a Sales leader. Just like any  professional athlete, even with consistent training and exacting playbooks, we never exactly know what the end game or the final points on the scoreboard will be.    

Just ask either side on the women's final basketball championship last week between Arizona and Stanford.  

 

Tags: sales coaching, sales management coach, sales enablement, closing sales, how to close sales, improving sales productivity, sales success, how to write a sales plan, planningsalestodayinacovidworld

Every day, every week, I work through a series of mini-plans at least in my head and most often in writing.

-Days start early before the sun and begin with a fountain pen and new yellow-ruled sheet of paper.

-I bullet down in a word or two the tasks needed for the company and for Tufts in two columns

Tags: Sales Optimization, sales effectiveness, sales planning, sales tools, closing sales, how to close sales, sales success, how to write a sales plan

With 30 years of skiing anchored firmly in my Vermont winta' roots, I've now spent the last 25 years only snowboarding gaining a new love for old trails and new woods and parks that I would have never explored on skis. I still remember the taunts and laughs from my skier buddies I left behind, but as with anything new, I've learned to find the best coaches and study harder and longer than others. 

This winta' morning, I find myself at the NH beach trading my Big Boy Ariens snowblower back in VT for shovels that fit NH winding paths and decks that overlook a very angry ocean.  It will actually be good to grab some fresh air and quick exercise today between six zooms and a board meeting. One of the benefits of WFH.

Love winta'...but cannot wait for March 20th, the official start of spring and leaving behind dark mornings and getting back out into the VT woods with my chainsaw or looking for seaglass on the NH beach.  I do love the rhythm and the variety of the NE seasons...most of the time

Tags: sales coaching, sales effectiveness, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, sales management boot camp, business coaching, how to close sales, improving sales productivity, sales success, how to write a sales plan, planningsalestodayinacovidworld

The interesting and good news about selling in 2021...

Tags: Sales Optimization, closing sales, how to close sales, improving sales productivity, best sales practices;, sales success, how to write a sales plan, sales effectivness, writing sales plans

"Connections"

I guess on the day before Christmas, I could wish for world peace, freedom from all hatred, an ability to embrace diversity at all levels and, of course the best health for you, your families, your friends and your employees...and, of course, I do hope for all of that.

Tags: closing sales, best sales practices;, sales success, sales effectivness, connections

This morning, with tonight's Nor'easter looming just a few hours from now, and the end of the entire sales year only eight days away, it's interesting to compare two timely forecasting scenarios:
-On one hand, we have local Boston weather forecasters guessing about snowfall.
-On the other, we have professional salespeople forecasting real revenue.

Tags: sales coach, sales enablement, closing sales, how to close sales, sales boot camps, improving sales productivity, sales success, how to write a sales plan, sales readiness, forgetsalesstrategyfocusontactics