Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, does it ever cause you to ask, “Who?", or maybe more fitting in the world of Sales, "What do you really love?”  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales management boot camp

Last Sunday, I was walking out to the barn and noticed that the big red thermometer read 6. Just by it's naked self...6.   Certainly a lot colder locations over the last couple of weeks. -31 in Fargo, -19 in Albany, and yesterday,-8 in Chicago, but here in the woods of Bondville-Winhall (pop. 725), it was just plain old 6 without the pluses or the minuses.  Just so that I would keep my sanity as I shoveled yet another path for the propane delivery guy to get to the tank, I thought about the relevancy of the number 6.  

Tags: sales coaching, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales, sales management effectiveness, sales optomization, sales boot camp, sales management boot camp, sales checklists

Toward the end of a very hectic December, I was facilitating a series of 2014 sales plan reviews for the senior sales team of a new customer.  It was interesting for me to note that in a few of the presentations, even heavily experienced salesguys commented that although this was their plan for the year, there "are a number of factors that are out of my control".   Always the pain-in-the-neck, provoking guy that I am, I asked about those, and the responses were...

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

Just Three 2014 Things...

If there were just three things that you could improve on and be super successful at during 2014, what would they be?

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales boot camp, sales jobs, sales management boot camp, strategic planning, sales checklists

Last Sunday, driving from early morning mass and on my way to my personal weekly reward, which is searching out sales at my favorite store, Home Depot, I noticed 20 feet ahead two turkeys feeding on late fall garden scraps on the left side of the road.  As I slowed down, I also noticed this small yellow sign noting "turkeys crossing" over to the right.  And then, as if on cue, 20ish turkeys hopped up on the stone wall, walked across the road right in front of my car and joined the others in the garden.   Which, of course, got me to thinking about Sales...

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management boot camp, sales checklists

Just about ready for winta'.  As part of my never-ending "drive-1,000-miles-a-week" travel schedule, late Thursday night and Friday morning found me in the towns of Colchester and Williston, VT.  I thank the inventor of GPS every single trip when I head off with absolutely no idea where I'm going other than... "It's north (or some other direction) somewhere."  A Mobil station dinner and a Hampton Inn breakfast later, I found that the management team at the Colchester and Williston plants were truly engaging, have complex opportunities, and I'm looking forward to our two day planning session in December.

Tags: Sales Best Practices, sales management, sales management coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management boot camp, sales boot camps, sales checklists

MassTLC (short for Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council) keeps doing everything perfectly! Having run a number of business associations such as SBANE, ACGBoston and the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, I personally know how very hard it is to keep things new, exciting, and constantly refreshed.   Members want to feel engaged, sponsors need to feel loved, and new prospects want to join only if "the cool kids" belong.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales management, sales enablement, sales planning, sales effictiveness, sales management boot camp, sales boot camps

30 years ago, during one of my "I think I will once again try to live in Vermont" sojourns, I remember working high on a mountain ridge one cold, wet fall morning pouring cement that we had laboriously carted up by buckets in ATVs for the footings on a microwave tower.  It was November and long gone were the colorful fall leaves and smiling tourists visiting the antiques fair down in the postcard-pretty town Weston.  It was back to the hardscrabble work of running a commercial masonry company building a series of towers all along the spine of Vermont.  That November and December, we worked until the ground froze hard with most daybreaks spent chopping through the ice that had crusted over our water storage from the overnight freeze.  It was during that period of what seemed to be a never-ending expedition of increasingly cold, wind-whipped, ugly, steel-gray days that I made a decision that I was moving back to Boston and would do everything I could to avoid November in Vermont. 

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management boot camp, sales producitivity

In St. John, New Brunswick, Canada this morning where I was a keynote speaker yesterday along with David Meerman Scott for the two day Engage Conference sponsored by the economic development and export trade offices of the Province and St. John.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales optomization, Sales quota, sales management boot camp, sales producitivity

A couple of times a week, I stop by Honovan's Cleaners to drop off laundry.  Right around the corner, Honovan is the epitome of uber customer satisfaction.  Open 12 hours a day, six days a week, she accommodates everything that I could possibly need. 

I don't want to be bothered with tickets, so years ago, Honavan simply told me "no tickets".  I don't want to wait in line.  Simple solution for Honovan was to give me a laundry bag.  I mentioned to her that I loved the fact that she opened, at 6:30 and then complained that the shoe repair store didn't open until 8.  That day, Honovan became the drop off place for the shoe repair guy.  Not satisfied with just laundry, shoes and, of course, alterations, a few years ago, she expanded to do the commercial laundry for many of the hotels in the Back Bay. 

Tags: Sales Best Practices, sales, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, business plans, how to write a business plan