Gotta hand it to the Celtics for their hard work, their athleticism, their perseverance and just true grit, but with Friday night's final score, we're on the sidelines watching the rest of the playoffs. Playing the game to win is the very nature of every sport, and it's also the core essence of every activity that we engage in as professional salespeople.
You want to win, you gotta' play to win which means that if you're behind right now halfway through the quarter, you may want to think about changing up your baseline drills for success.
Here's a few simple, but directly impactful ideas to try out this beautiful Monday morning:
- Every month: Update your written team playbook by getting everyone on the team directly involved.
A playbook is not your annual sales plan that you architected last December. This is a living, breathing document that's frequently revisited and updated with the team at the beginning of every month. We've been insisting on these now for a few years, and the direct impact has been amazing.
- Every week:
-Hold one-hour early AM training drills on one or two specific tactics.
-Personally connect for 15 minutes with 1 successful person who inspires you.
-Read 1 technical article written in 2024-2025 on what it takes to be successful in Sales.
- Every day:
-Think like a customer first, not a salesperson selling anything.
-Focus on what you can do to drive direct business value for your customers.
-Begin each day by verbalizing out loud why you're the best salesperson.
-Start with activities that energize you-maybe it's exercise or listening to a podcast on the drive.
-Dig into tracking the math in detail: every play, every conversion and every score.
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Sales Best Practices,
Sales Management Best Practices,
Sales Hiring Perfectly,
Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts,
2025 Business Planning,
2025MarketingPlanning,
2025SalesPlanning
Arrived here in Vermont late last night to discover everything was just wicked cold...and totally frozen...even though I had been watching the plow guys and shovelers on my Ring for the last two weeks. Right now, I'm in my downstairs office but not able to see out the window which is covered with 4 feet of snow. One has gotta' love living in Vermont, but then my family has been here in this valley for 7 generations, so every once in a while, I trick myself into thinking that I'm used to constant snow and temps below 0...but not really. My great grandfather, Horace, lived up the road a piece in Poultney and (according to my grandfather) talked about 9 months of winta', 1 of summa', 1 of mosquitos and 1 of damn poor sleddin'".
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Sales Best Practices,
Sales Management Best Practices,
finding sales jobs,
Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts,
2025 Business Planning,
2025MarketingPlanning,
2025SalesPlanning
I have the excitement of living on the NH beach, working in Boston, teaching at Tufts and spending time in Vermont. If it weren't for the NH-Boston commute, the daily rhythm would be perfect, but it is what it is, and even the length of the commute has a seasonal rhythm of its own with the fall being the worst. At least the drive is a good time for podcasts.
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Sales Best Practices,
Sales Management Best Practices,
Making Tough Choices,
Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts,
2025 Business Planning
It's been a great summer! For me, it's been wicked busy with just enough time off here and there to refresh. Off this morning with the unhappy cats already packed into the car to head to Vermont for a week before back to Boston for cataract surgery on the other eye the last week of August. I thought I would end the summer blogs with answers to a question that I get asked all of the time and for whatever reason was asked by a bunch of people after last Saturday's blog: "What books do you recommend for keeping up with Sales & Marketing?"
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Sales Best Practices,
Inboound,
Teaching entrepreneurship,
2024 sales and marketing best practices,
2024 Sales Planning,
2024 Business Planning,
2024 Marketing Planning
For me this has been an "interesting" week of cataract surgery. Completed on Wednesday, checked on by my surgeon on Thursday and now learning to relearn my typing abilities today. The other eye in two weeks because I needed to get all of this done now before the craziness of September accelerates, and I didn't want this ever-increasing problem to slow me down either at the firm or at The Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
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Tags:
Sales Best Practices,
HubSpot Tips,
Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts,
2024 sales and marketing best practices,
2024 Sales Planning,
2024 Business Planning,
2024 Marketing Planning
