Tufts classes are now deep into their second week, and my Marketing students are equally deep into their projects with 5-6 students assigned to each. In my consistent theme of "Marketing is Everything", which has been in my head, my writing, and basically everything I do in Sales and in Marketing, all my students are exploring and most importantly beginning to organize what will become fully developed marketing plans 10 weeks from now.
Tags: marketing projects, marketing effectiveness, sales culture, Tufts Marketing, marketing planning, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022 business planning, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship
In my 9 prior startups where I've been a founder/co-founder, they've all been in software or healthcare. Those are comfortable markets where I have backgrounds, plus I personally enjoy the complexities of building go-to-market marketing and sales plans in these demanding markets. My forays into consumer products have been limited to a medtech product sold in chain pharmacies and to outerwear apparel working with the genius of legendary CB Vaughn at CB Sports.
Tags: how to write a marketing plan, jack derby professor at Tufts, marketing planning, Tufts Entrepreneurship, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022 business planning, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts
Gearing up for re-entry into the Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts since in four weeks, I'll need to accelerate from my normal 70 mph day-to-day Derby Management work to 110 mph at Tufts.
That faster pace and my personal excitement of Tufts are the result of the tight integration of my teaching marketing to 36 juniors and seniors who are already signed up in six person teams working on six complex semester-long marketing projects. Of these six projects, three are well-known companies to Derby Management, one is an emerging company begun by one of my alums, another is a startup from a very well-known nutrition scientist here at Tufts, and the remaining is a fascinating consumer healthcare product.
The bottom line of the kickoff on September 7th is that full marketing plans complete with research, strategies, tactics, detailed recommendations and budgets will be presented to their customers for grading during the first week of December.
The class actually begins with a 15-minute, rapid-fire, standup 15 question quiz on one of the summer assignments which is to complete what I call "a beach read" of David Meerman's Scott's iconic, 8th edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR.
That exercise is then followed with my favorite question which I always ask in my kickoff class at Tufts and at MIT. It's a very simple question, and for me a very simple answer, which I do not provide until the whiteboard is filled with answers from the students which typically include words such, "convincing", "selling", "social media", "ads", "PR", "branding", "lead generation", "pricing" and even a few negative words like "tricking" and so on.
I always go back to the iconic Marketing is Everything article written by Regis McKenna, one of the most influential marketers in history, and one of the small number of individuals who began what is today known as Silicon Valley. I find that the underlying premise of this 30-year-old article is even more critical today given the explosion of choices everyone has in their marketing strategies, tactics, platforms, tools and apps, most of which are powered through AI and bots.
And let's not forget that the hyper-crowded graphic above is only martech and does not include radio, TV, snail mail, billboards or trade shows which continue to have a major role in what we call "marketing"!
The good news is that marketing is everything! The bad news is that marketing is everything! And many non-progressive marketers continue to believe that what they did five years ago, or even last year, is still relevant or sales productive today. The reality is that it may be, likely it is not.
Many of us believe we're pretty good singers in the car or the shower, but only a tiny 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% become paid singers. It's the same with marketing which is why I teach the subject since it's constantly being updated, and the true job of any good marketer is to figure out the highest impact at a cost that fits into a budget that drives sales qualified leads. The result is as simple as that, which is why we always measure CAC as one of our top three primary metrics. The complexity comes in the making of the choices.
The exciting part of our course is the ability to learn and experiment in real time. The students can set in motion the marketing tactics of ads, social channels, PR and which blogs and which events have impact and be able to measure all of that in their Hubspot marketing platforms. All the incoming students must be certified in Inbound Marketing at the beginning of the semester.
Just some thoughts for a late Friday morning to think about over what looks like a spectacular summer weekend, which will find me walking across the street to the NH beach.
At any time, if you want to discuss your own sales and marketing planning for the rest of this year, just connect with me for some quick ideas and feedback. There's no cost to a call or two, plus I love listening and talking about this new rapidly changing world of sales and marketing. It's nothing like the old days of 2020! In the meantime, take a look at our 2022 edition of "Writing the 2022 Winning Sales Plan" , or our Writing the Winning Marketing Plan in 2022.
www.derbymanagement.com
Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts.
https://www.tufts.edu/
Tags: sales planning, marketing effectiveness, HubSpot Tips, Tufts marketing projects, free marketing projects from universities, marketing plans, marketing planning, 2020 sales plans, 2022 sales planning, 2022businessplansuccess, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts
Somewhere deep in the rhythm of the lives of all of us are the memories which awaken around this time of year of "back to school" whether that results from buying clothes and supplies for our own kids or the anxieties that came in our own lives with major shifts into a new building or going off to college as a freshman. The rhythm of operating our businesses, especially as it relates to our employees, is often in sync with the rhythms of the school year.
Tags: free marketing projects from universities, marketing planning, social entrepreneurship, 2022businessplansuccess, Teaching entrepreneurship, Teaching at Tufts University, Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts
I've always loved music of any kind! I grew up on 1940's jazz, I love classic 60's rock (never missed a U.S. Stones concert), I tolerated disco, love early rap and have a special place in my head and heart for soul and funk.
Tags: sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales tools, marketing effectiveness, how to close sales, sales success, how to write a sales plan, marketing planning, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022 business planning
On Friday the 13th, and a beautiful spring day here in my tiny (p.769) town of Winhall (the state's name) or Bondville (the fed's name), the wake-up question for this morning is do we create our own luck?
Tags: sales coaching, student intern marketing projects, how to write a sales plan, marketing planning, sales management productivity, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022 sales planning, 2022businessplansuccess
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
The end of the day on Thursday found me starting to write this morning's blog on a classic VT spring day:
Tags: marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, how to close sales, Tufts marketing projects, free marketing projects from universities, how to write a marketing plan, marketing planning, 2022 sales planning, 2022businessplansuccess
This past Wednesday, I started to see a few hundred downloads of my ebook on "Writing the Winning Business Plan", and then a few hundred more on Thursday, and already early this AM, lots of detailed questions from readers. Then I realized that it's that time of year that new students in the MITx course on business planning were gearing up, and this is a core read. The book is also used in my own teaching every fall at MIT in the ME course taught by Dr. Chun, who asked me 21 years ago if I could assist in teaching a few business principles to his undergrad and grad students. That exciting experience, which continues every fall at MIT, also led me to the opportunity to teach at Tufts 16 years ago.
Tags: marketing productivity, small business management, business coaching, how to write a business plan, marketing planning, writing business plans, 2022 business planning
Whenever I can, I start the day with a run on the NH beach. This is a picture from Wednesday morning. Yea, I know! Some of you right now are asking...
"Does NH really have a beach?"
And the answer is 14 miles of pristine ocean and sand with some of the best surfing in NE. This is where I and my brothers grew up as kids, and when our mother wanted to get rid of us, she would tell us to go out and find beach glass and bring her back a present. Decades later, I still look for beach glass.
Tags: marketing productivity, Tufts marketing projects, how to write a sales plan, marketing planning, writing sales plans, writing your marketing plan
