Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

The day after the last hours of the last day of the last month of the all important second quarter.

Tags: sales coaching, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales coach

• -220 work days in the year
• -"the best" sales people work 57 hours/week
• -15%/week is the average time totally wasted
• -only 57%/week spent on actual "selling"
• -most deals take 6 calls & meetings to close
• -most salespeople give up after 3 calls
• -most salespeople create 65%+ of their own leads

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training

Did you watch the Barbara Walters special Friday night?

Tags: sales coaching, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales, sales plan process, sales enablement, sales tools, improving sales productivity

I had the pleasure on Monday of sitting through 12 account reviews at one of our customers. Solid experienced sales people, a brand name Boston-based company, established management-all good.  As one of the guys pointed out during his review of his ytd performance, "Sales cures all ills", and, of course he's correct, but...

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales effectiveness, sales enablement

This is the final week! Or, more appropriately...this is Finals Week.

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, best sales practices;

When Hurricane Irene devastated Vermont, we became Vermont Strong!  We didn't wait for FEMA to show up to hand out blankets and food stamps.  That next day, we worked knee deep in the rivers with wheelbarrows and shovels to get Vermont back on the map. Even though 6 bridges had been totally torn away in the 30 miles between Brattleboro and Stratton, the road was open again in two weeks. Two years later, tens of thousands of Vermonters proudly display "We are Vermont Strong" license plates.
 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales, sales management coach, sales effectiveness, sales tools, sales training, best sales practices;

April 21st marks the 118th running of the Boston Marathon.  Considering the tragedy that occurred last year, this particular marathon will be steeped in pride and emotion as a record number of runners participate to show their support for the event and the runners, along with their respect for those who died and were injured in last year's horror.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training

Driving back from running one of our boot camps in Rochester last Friday, I decided to stop at the house in (the frozen tundra of) Vermont rather than make the drive even longer by continuing on to the NH beach.  Looking at the house, as I drove in late Friday afternoon, I noticed that there were...

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales optomization, sales boot camps

Monday morning I was reading what turned out to be a really stupid HBR article about "professionalism".  It actually started with the interesting question of "Do your colleagues think you’re professional?", which got me to thinking about the perceptions that people have regarding salespeople in general. Unfortunately, the article then went on to attempt to tie "professionalism" to the way one decorates their cubicle and then tie that result into gender and race.  Note to HBR:  you really need to do a better job at screening your writers.

Tags: Sales Best Practices, sales coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management training, sales optomization, sales management boot camp, sales producitivity, sales boot camps

Last week I celebrated my xx birthday.   No magic number.  No big celebration.  But, as a friend of mine from my daily high school email posse remarked... "Having birthdays is a whole lot better than not having them".  James Geshwiler and Maia Heymann began our 8:00 Monday morning  status call at Common Angels by singing "Happy Birthday".  Mike Schumann, VP of Sales at Salsify, asked through Linked In how it felt to be 49? I responded, of course, that "I wouldn't know...yet." 70 of my FaceBook friends chimed in with best wishes and another couple of hundred through Linked In. And, yes, I did get two actual paper birthday cards...from the cats.  And, oh yeah, I bought myself a car as a birthday gift.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales effectiveness, sales management training, sales training, sales boot camp, sales management boot camps