Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

There are Laws…

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, Sales quota, sales training, management

Everyone thinks about time.  Other than money,  most of us are always trying to rethink and rebalance our time commitments.  Time to be somewhere, time to pick up the kids, time to work, time left in the month to sell stuff, time to go on vacation.  It’s just that we think, we work our sales activities around, and we plan our non-work around the central issue of TIME.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training

There are no excellent salespeople!

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training

                                                

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training

With The Perfect July 4^th weekend tucked away, and while I was lost in the myriad of activities from watching 3 back-to-back nights of fireworks on the beach, to singing an enthusiastic “God Bless America” at Sunday mass to watching a group of red, white and blue painted teenagers loft a huge flag and lead hundreds of people on the very crowded beach to sing “Happy Birthday”, I got around to thinking about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, Sales quota, sales training, management, marketing management

Barely at sunrise this morning, I took a walk on the beach before setting off for the office.  I needed to clear my head from yesterday’s tough deal and a big cancellation which arrived in an unexpected email last night at 11. More of a reschedule than a cancellation, but the impact is the same-nothing happening this month.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, sales training, marketing management

Just when I thought that it was ok to pop my head out of my bunker and look out at what I thought was shaping up to be a pretty good Q2, WHAM, good ol’ Uncle Bernanke slammed me down like a Whack-a-Mole this week as those wonderful phrases of "worst financial crisis”, “most severe housing bust”, “facing additional headwinds”, “Japanese disaster” and my personal catchall favorite of “additional global pressures” hit the airways.   The market this week, already reeling from the effects of last week’s very poor job market results, collided into a stone wall just as hard as Wiley Coyote trying to outmaneuver the Road Runner.  Unfortunately, there’s not much that can change either the laws of physics for Mr. Coyote or the effects of macroeconomics when Uncle Ben speaks.

Somehow, my portfolio hopefully will make it through the financial machinations of Obamanomics.  All I know is that for all of us out there selling our products and services this month, we now have just one more barrier thrown in front of us this week as a reason not to buy.   Nothing slows down a big purchase more than the Fear Factor.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota

With the turn of the digital page today, we’re BANG right into June and facing the end of the quarter.  Hard now to remember those exciting days back in January at the annual sales meeting, when everything was spread out before us and December, 2011 seemed a very long way away. 

Actually, Q2 for me is always the most interesting and advantageous quarter of the year.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, Sales quota, sales training

9 out of 10 sales calls are going to end up in outright rejection or at least an entry pass into the valley of despair with such heartwarming comments like, “We need to discuss this internally…for a while”, or even after you’ve used all of your considerable closing skills to get a commitment, the response continues to be, “We’re still kicking this around, I'll call you in the next couple of weeks”. 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, Sales quota, sales training

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, sales training, management