Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

The most important thing about 2016 is that it will be a year of substantial change!

Tags: sales productivity, sales, sales management, sales coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablement

 

A Wonderfully Exciting Time of Year!

1. Focus on the # of Days

 

Tags: sales productivity, sales, sales coach, sales management coach

In almost every industry, Monday morning sales meetings are part of the DNA of running most organizations

Tags: sales, sales coach, sales tools, sales plans, business planning meetings, sales meeting, sales planning meetings

Earlier, I wrote a blog about "Luck & Sales".  

No Such Thing as Luck in Sales

As we now face down the critical, last six weeks of the year, it's important for all of us as Sales Warriors to remember that... There is no such thing as luck in the profession of Sales.

The Patriots kick in the last six seconds last Sunday had nothing to do with luck.

That last precision march down the field ending in the perfectly-placed 54 yard kick was all about consistent and dedicated training, nerves of steel and a unrelenting drive of the team to win.

In the world of Sales, orders will be won and lost during these last 22 days of the year solely on the basis of our skills training, our prepping and working on the weekends, our consistent use of every account management and planning tactic that we currently have in our toolboxes, and finally on utilizing every possible connection we have in our individual networks.  Classic blocking and tackling in the game of Sales!  

Over the next 22 days, this is when everything must come together perfectly

• All the training, the videos and the practice sessions
• All the value propositions and the rest of your marketing tools 
• All the embedded sales process tools and their related technologies

Luck would be nice, but it ain't gonna happen.

Nothing but experienced skills, detailed account plans, full force time-management practice and 12 hour days. Luck would be nice, but it ain't gonna happen.  My experience is that luck actually never happens when you need it, which is why we call orders that surprise you and fall out of nowwhere, "Bluebirds". They come and go and you're always amazed and thankful that they happen, but they never occur when you're up against a quota deadline. 

When I wrote the blog about luck a few months ago, my dedication to the formality of planning and, in fact, my addiction to "over-planning" was heightened by comments the blog received from a number of sales and business leaders that I have come to greatly admire over the years.

• "One of my favorite sayings:   'you create your own luck' ”.
  Paul Frascoia, CEO
• Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” a quote attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher. 
  Bob Flaherty, CEO 
• Your article reminds me of a quote from Jack Nicklaus.  Someone asked him how much luck played into winning a tournament.  He replied, "You know, it's funny.  The more I practice, the luckier I get." Arnie Greenfield, CTO
• I'm not a big believer in getting lucky with sales. I am a big believer in good timing and sales. I suppose they might be similar in that a combination of skills plus high levels of activity will eventually lead to events that result from good timing. So not sure luck is involved when a prospect lives through an event that finally makes them think about your solution. To me it's more about good timing resulting from skillful relationship building combined with high levels of activity, leading to "hey, thanks for the call, we were just thinking about you", type of good timing responses.   
  Ray Bixler, CEO
• Two comments came to mind while reading this post: 
  1 - Hope is not a strategy
  2 - luck is where preparedness meets opportunity. 
  Art Brault, VP Sales.
• Luck does come in to play in a major way in sales, as in a group of factors that you have no control over. How you sell lets you control how much of an effect luck has on the outcome.
  (1) Cold calling- all luck, just a numbers game
  (2) Consultative selling increases the odds dramatically of the Luck being good.   
  Rob Turbett, CEO
• Years ago, a fairly close friend told me that my success and good fortune in life had come from my being “lucky.” I responded that no one is simply lucky and that you have to put yourself in the path of luck, in order to benefit from it if/when it comes and that you cannot sit around and wait for the phone to ring or for luck to happen.
  Jack Gaziano, SVP
• For 17 years I passed a stained glass window in the old H.J. Heinz HQ building in the Northside of Pittsburgh. The words: Luck helps you over the ditch if you jump well. True in late 1800s. True today. Tom Powell, CEO
• Jack, I recently gave a talk at the Plastics News Executive Forum in Las Vegas. The title was “The Accidental Strategist” (you were mentioned a few times!) and my opening slide was “Great Thoughts on Luck”
  -“The harder I work the luckier I get” – Samuel Goldwyn
  -“Luck is the residue of design” – John Milton
  -“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” – Seneca
  Jeff Somple, President 

All very powerful reminders as we now move relentlessly down the field, play-by-play, with the clock ticking away the 22 days, setting ourselves and our team up to drive across the goal line.  

As the book, Hope is not a Strategy, (a very worthwhile read, btw), points out, take the words "hope" and "luck" totally out of your vocabulary, especially now.

At this time of year, success is now all about you during these last 22 days of the selling season 

 

Good Selling Today!  

 

 

Finally, as you move through your own 2016 Sales Planning process at this time of year, if you have specific planning questions that you want to bounce off me or the other Derby Management Coaches regarding sales plans, sales comp programs, sales tools, or any part of the sales and marketing funnels, just email me, and we can set up a time to talk with me or any of our other heavily experienced Coaches.  There's no cost, of course, for a call.

Selling today is complex enough without trying to go through this process of account, organizational and compensation planning by yourself. Just give us a call.  

 

 

 TUFTS University Marketing Projects

I'm in my third week of continuing to look for new solid marketing projects for my spring Tufts marketing class at Tufts, where I'm a professor.  A unique and highly successful opportunity for your company to wring out a new product idea or a fully developed marketing plan with Tufts' Best & Brightest from one of the leading universities in the country.  This semester-long program is designed to incorporate marketing projects from companies ranging in size from venture-funded startups to divisions of major corporations.  This current semester, we had 22 companies apply for the six positions.
 
The deadline for submissions for this spring's semester is December 15th.  Projects will be sent to the students for assessment and team creation at the end of December.   

If you're interested in finding out more, just email me at jack@derbymanagement.com.  Of course, I'm biased and, yes, more than a bit passionate about Tufts, but I must say somewhat objectively that our results, as attested to buy our customer companies, have been outstanding with many companies coming back year after year and hiring our seniors to be part of their companies.

 

   

Head Coach  

Derby Management...for 25 years
-Sales & Marketing Productivity Experts
-Business & Strategy Planning Specialists
-Senior Management Coaching for CEOs & VPs

Box 171322, Boston, MA 02117
Jack's Cell: 617-504-4222 

    

 

 

Tags: sales coaching, sales, sales coach, sales tools, selling, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans

Thanks very much for the comments and ideas from last week's blog post on "The (first) Five Rules".  As promised, here are the remaining five.  It may well be that you have your own, so let me and our readers know about your ideas by commenting below...

Tags: sales coaching, sales coach, sales tools, sales plans, business planning, business plans, sales planning meetings

Do you remember the Northeasters from last week?

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales management effectiveness, sales coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablment, sales culture

I had the privilege of having David Meerman Scott come to my Tufts marketing class yesterday and talk about the future of marketing.  Actually, to be truthful, his coming to the class had very little to do with me, and 99% to do with my students.

Tags: sales productivity, sales coaching, Sales Management Best Practices, sales coach, sales management coach, selling skills, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, sales listening, sales culture, marketing

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

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

Back in the day...when I actually read a physical newspaper, I always carried the paper to the treadmill and immediately opened the last page of The Boston Globe and began the day by reading the comics. Today that daily routine has been replaced by my iPad and the digital excellence of experiencing the daily WSJ.  I still read the so-so content of the Globe, but only online and although the comics are digitally available, even techy-nerdy-me would say..."it's not quite the same". 

Tags: sales productivity, sales coaching, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management effectiveness, sales coach, sales management coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, selling skills, sales boot camp, sales listening