Tufts classes are now deep into their second week, and my Marketing students are equally deep into their projects with 5-6 students assigned to each. In my consistent theme of "Marketing is Everything", which has been in my head, my writing, and basically everything I do in Sales and in Marketing, all my students are exploring and most importantly beginning to organize what will become fully developed marketing plans 10 weeks from now.
Tags: marketing projects, marketing effectiveness, sales culture, Tufts Marketing, marketing planning, Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts, 2022 business planning, entrepreneurshipfortherestofus, Teaching entrepreneurship
Recently, I've spent a lot of time thinking about two of my favorite and most interesting customers
Tags: sales coach, sales tools, sales culture, sales success
Interesting article in The WSJ yesterday. If you have a subscription, you'll find it HERE.
Folding laundry frustrates most everyone. Makers of consumer products, feel the same way.
“We’re constantly thinking about it,” says Jennifer Schoenegge, general manager of General Electric Co.’s appliance brands. Engineers at the maker of washing machines and other kitchen appliances have joked with her that the solution is a butler, Ms. Schoenegge says. “We haven’t cracked that nut yet.”
Folding laundry stubbornly remains a job done by hand, item by item. It is a Holy Grail for inventors who have seen billion-dollar industries created from products that solve chores such as washing and drying clothes, scrubbing dishes and cleaning floors.
There are some new products, even machines that will fold overnight for anyone willing to part with money and floor space. Meanwhile, marketers are studying the habits consumers don’t often admit to.
I get very frustrated at stupid telemarketers and spam emails, both because they interrupt me and waste my time even if it's just to delete their messages, but also because they're using antiquated Outbound techniques that have been proven time and time again to be both ineffective and very inefficient. Don't get me started on trade shows!
What's your percentage of operating use between Inbound & Outbound? Mine's 40/60 in terms of dollars, when I include client dinners and our two annual CEO events. Other than that, it's all Inbound.
Final Question...
What's your most frustrating chore?
Mine is definitely not laundry! It is food shopping, and in spite of my being a techy kind of guy and although there are lots of interesting online apps for food delivery, I still find myself pushing carts down the aisles in Market Basket every weekend. Ugh! Really frustrating. There's got to be a better way. When I lived in the city years ago, Peapod was superb! Try to get any delivery at the NH beach of anything is very, very frustrating.
Let us know... "What's yours?"
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Also, since you're now deep into Q2, you just may want to put aside a day during the next two weeks to refine and update your 2016 Business Plan, or at least your 2016 Sales and Marketing Plans. To get you started, click here and receive a downloaded copy of our Writing the Winning Business Plan, 2016 edition.
Another opportunity for preparing now for Q4 is to do the same type of "relook" at the basics of your 2016 Marketing Plan after reviewing our ebook on "How to Write a Marketing Plan". This consists of mostly solid basics and tactical structure stuff...which just might be the perfect thing to do right now before you dive too deeply into Q3.
...and, of course, if you just want to talk through some of where you are right now and use us as a confidential sounding board...or do a short Whiteboarding Session with any of us, just email me, and we will work out a convenient schedule.
Good Selling!
Derby Management...for 25 years
-Sales & Marketing Productivity Experts
-Business & Strategy Planning Specialists
-Senior Management Coaches for CEOs & VPs
Box 171322, Boston, MA 02117
Jack's Cell: 617-504-4222
Tags: selling, Sales quota, sales jobs, sales culture
Back in the day, you probably remember your mother warning you about making sure that you were wearing clean underwear "because if you're in an accident, and they bring you to the hospital, then, you want to make sure that you don't have dirty underwear". I must admit I didn't think about this a lot during my various ER experiences of broken bones after falling off my bike or crashing into trees while learning to snowboard. Actually, there never seemed to be any checklist at the ER asking about the health or even the cleanliness of my underwear.
Tags: sales coach, sales planning, sales tools, Sales quota, sales culture
Two weeks ago, I underwent bypass surgery at MGH. "Big Success" is all I wanted to hear, and those were the exact two words scribbled boldly across my discharge papers. What's ahead are a few weeks of recovery and exercise, and then, just as I have heard from hundreds of blog readers and Facebook friends, "better than before". That phrase by itself raises a lot more questions, and one of the most important of those to be answered is that of "What's Important?".
See, I thought that I was already "better than before", and have always exercised every day, and snowboarded and surfed on the weekends. Couple those activities with relatively good diets, and I should be the postercild for "Healthy (older) Boy" of the year. 2014 didn't seem to end that way, but on the very positive side of all of this, 2014 is now way back in the rear view mirror.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales optomization, sales management boot camp, sales culture
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
Tags: sales coaching, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales management training, sales training, sales plans, sales effictiveness, sales culture
As we think about the way-too-rapidly-approach to Labor Day...
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales tools, sales culture
To the uninitiated, the managers who never actually sold anything, the presidents who did not climb up the rungs from entry-level sales positions to become the #1 salesperson, and to the operations managers who regard salespeople as a necessary evil, the presumption is that money drives success in salespeople.
Tags: sales coaching, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales effectiveness, sales producitivity, sales culture, sales boot camps
