After college at BC, I went into the Peace Corps returning to the world from Tanzania three years later to face the reality of finding a job. A couple of twists and turns, and I found myself working as a purchasing expeditor for Honeywell as the company attempted to shift from manufacturing and selling heating systems into what was then called the first "mini-computers". It was a brave attempt that failed when a little local company called Digital Equipmentdid it better. Most of the time I've come to learn that the phrase "first mover advantage" is a startup myth more often eclipsed by the truer phrase that "most pioneers get shot in the back."
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Selling Successfully in a Covid World
The rhythm of the seasons...Taint spring yet
I was reminded yesterday of the inevitable rhythm of the seasons both in VT and in the world of Sales. It seems that for some yet unknown reason, a decision has been made to redo the kitchen in Vermont. Not that I was consulted or even asked in this decision process, but I was told that a decision had been made all the same. Given this, I reached out to my friend Steve at Homestead, the company up at the end of the road a piece that does the plowing in the winta', the lawn in the summa' and basically everything else from landscaping to construction at the VT house.
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20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore! Dream! Discover!
...Mark Twain
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sales boot camp,
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Tufts marketing projects,
jack derby professor at Tufts,
sales management productivity,
creating trust in sales,
Tufts Entrepreneurship,
sales motivation
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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.
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sales productivity,
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In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there was an interesting marketing article on Wheaties. Most of us grew up with the marketing tag line of "The Breakfast of Champions" ringing in our head along with pictures of Michael Jordan, Dorothy Hamil, Michael Phelps and similar top level athletes featured in full color on the outside of the box. Wheaties actually taste pretty good! The problem is that although they are an iconic 91 year old brand, they no longer sell very well.
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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.
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sales coaching,
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sales,
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sales boot camp,
sales management boot camp,
sales checklists
Guiding the brand new Subaru carefully out of NH and into Boston through yet another snow storm and blasting cold wind this morning. Steel gray skies and and tough sleddin' everywhere, but that's why they invented 4 wheel drive.
Even though it seems like we're already two or three months into this winta' season, the calendar technically notes that it's just 30 days. All I know is that I'm burning way more wood than usual in the stove in Vermont, and right now it looks like all my careful planning isn't working out that well.
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sales productivity,
Sales Optimization,
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sales enablement,
sales tools,
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sales management boot camp
