Questions:
- When will we get back to work?
- When can I start selling again?
- What's the messaging I should be using?
In a few hours, I'll be leading a webinar with 100+ business owners of New England destination hotels and vacation resorts who are looking for answers to these and 60 plus other questions that they've submitted in advance.
These are the people right at the epicenter of the struggle who have had hundreds of cancellations for long-planned weddings, reunions and business conferences planned specifically around "getting away to the peaceful, bucolic and quiet beaches and mountains of New England". And now, they have nothing but questions, time on their hands and the adjacent fears of unpaid bills and not knowing what to tell long term employees that they've already laid off.
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Tags:
sales leadership,
value propositions,
sales management productivity,
creating trust in sales,
2020 sales plans,
sales readiness
This is exactly where we hoped we would not be, and yet, here we are today in the belly of the beast.
Not many of us any longer are hoping that this situation will get better, since what we have experienced most recently in the harsh reality of the last seven days, clearly defines that the personal and business impact will become a lot worse before it improves. I am neither capable nor technically equipped to make any projections, and my personal business expectations are just as good or as bad as yours, but having said that, I, like you, run businesses and, like you, I'm a pragmatist, and I know that we are in this chaotic situation for a long time until vaccines hit the market.
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Tags:
improving sales productivity,
Making Tough Choices,
sales management productivity,
creating trust in sales,
2020 sales plans,
writing sales plans,
sales readiness
In a time of fear and concern regarding the personal and business impact of the COVID-19 virus, where do I turn?
My recommendation is listen only to the experts!
If I listen to most radio channels or watch David Muir on the evening news, in all respect, I don't know whether I should immediately drive to my Vermont bunker up on the ridge and hunker down with my six months of rations, or merely drive to Home Depot and pick up more antiseptic wipes.
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Tags:
sales planning meetings,
sales success,
value propositions,
Sales Hiring & Onboarding,
how to write a sales plan,
creating trust in sales,
2020 sales plans,
writing sales plans,
sales readiness
20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore! Dream! Discover!
...Mark Twain
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Tags:
sales boot camp,
sales management boot camps,
Tufts marketing projects,
jack derby professor at Tufts,
sales management productivity,
creating trust in sales,
Tufts Entrepreneurship,
sales motivation
Being a disciple of the high priests of David Meerman Scott, the guys at Hubspot and the gurus of Jamie Turner, Mike Troiano, Dan Tyre and Mike Volpe over the past decade, I'm an Inbound Marketing kind of guy!.
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testimonial,
Tufts internships,
interns for marketing projects,
inbound,
sales management productivity,
creating trust in sales,
Tufts Entrepreneurship,
sales motivation,
Tufts Entrepreneurship Center
At the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center, in addition to shepherding 450 enthusiastic and curious students a semester among 16 wicked smart professors, I've been focusing on building an event structure throughout the year that leads up to our $100K New Venture Competition in the spring. Right now, you should Mark April 5th in your calendar and come and participate in what Forbes ranks as one of "The top 15 business plan contests in the country."
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Tags:
sales leadership,
value propositions,
jack derby professor at Tufts,
sales management plans,
creating trust in sales,
Tufts Entrepreneurship
Vermont's Marketing in the Fall
25% of Vermont's tourist dollars come as a result of four weeks during the leaf-peeping season from caravans of busses out the Midwest and outright commercialism of marketing and selling everything that is the essence of Vermont.
To the left is a picture from last weekend taken from my dirt road 'bout half a mile from my house. Doesn't get Vermont-better than this in terms of the beauty that is the fall...and the tourist dollars that come rolling in as a result.
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Tags:
Tufts university,
value propositions,
Sales Hiring Perfectly,
jack derby professor at Tufts,
sales management productivity,
creating trust in sales,
sales careers,
Tufts Entrepreneurship
Yikes ! The first full week of February already ?!?!
- How are those New Year's Resolutions doing?
- What about those personal changes you've been thinking about?
- If you wrote down "be a better sales leader", do you now have a plan?
When he was CEO of GE, Jack Welch wrote:
"The world will not belong to managers of those who can make the numbers dance. The world will belong to passionate, driven leaders-people who not only have enormous amounts of energy, but who can energize those whom they lead."
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Tags:
improving sales productivity,
sales leadership,
sales management productivity,
sales effectivness,
sales plans for 2018,
creating trust in sales
I have lots of room for improvements, so it's hard to limit my 2018 resolutions to just one, but in my work as a salesguy...
What would that be?
- Would it be to make more calls? Close more deals?
- Travel more? Or actually, travel less?
- Hire managers and salespeople more quickly and with few mistakes?
- Plan my time better for the week or for the month or quarter?
It looks like 2018 will be a year of significant change for me, so while all of the bullets above are actually pretty good ideas, and while I can always do better, my one resolution is both simpler and more complex. Simple, because it actually is, but, more complex because I always want to express my opinion, when in fact, I should just shut up, not speak and listen much more completely.
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Tags:
sales leadership,
sales productiv,
how to write a sales plan,
sales effectivness,
creating trust in sales
