Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

Summa!

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, sales management, sales coach, sales planning, sales producitivity, business tools, business planning, business plans, The Competitive Edge, writing a business plan

Of course the announcement of the beginning of Spring brings out all of that amorphous stuff about rebirth, awakening and new growth.  For me, after all of these springs, I'm sure that those touchy feelings also exist somewhere neatly filed in some dusty corner of my brain right alongside my desire to look for the first robin.  Not really !

Tags: entreprenurial, Sales Management Best Practices, sales optomization, sales management boot camp, improving sales productivity, sales leadership, Making Tough Choices

I've had the privilege of knowing Marijo McCarthy for 30+ years, so I was very pleased when I received an email from her following last week's blog. 

A gifted lawyer at the firm of Widett and McCarthy, she and I and another 20 plus small business entrepreneurs breathed new life into SBANE, "The Smaller Business Association of New England", (now, rebranded to The New England Business Association" ) back-in-the-day.  Led by Julie Scofield, the powerful Executive Director of the association, SBANE was placed squarely on the map in New England as "THE" place to be for small business. 

Not tech or specific market focused, but just "meat-and-potatoes" small businesses run by rock solid women and men who came together to share best practices and consistent networking...on steroids.  
Back-in-the-day, SBANE was all about the basics of business networking, education in what it takes to run a small business successfully, and superb connections from trusted referrals.

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, sales enablement, sales management training, sales management productivity, selling trust

If there is one lesson in Sales that I've learned this year, it is not to overthink things !

Success in life and in Sales is all about providing the real value that your partners need and want.

If we focus at this time in this magical Christmas season in practicing just one belief, one skill, and one love for the year ahead, we will all be better salespeople, and, most probably, just better people. 

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, improving sales productivity

It's come down to this...

• Today through Friday...still pretty good selling days !
• Next Monday, of course, is Christmas, so enjoy !
• As far as next Tuesday's concerned, everyone's traveling either here or there !
• And, then Wednesday-Friday, might be good for you, but most buyers have checked out !

The Blue Skies of Hope & The Valley of Reality

So, just to be conservative in our planning and quickly adjust our heads, and most importantly, our time this week, let's set out this Monday morning figuring that there are only five days to demonstrate our ability to bring in our forecasted deals and punch the ticket to go to President's Club in February. 

Which means, we need to plan every call and every activity this week and not get distracted by, or totally lost in "the blue skies of hope".

- Forget about the Bluebirds

- Don't waste a lot time on brand new leads

- Just focus on the bottom of your current funnel

 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales planning

Be IMPERATIVE, and not just Vanilla !

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales enablement

Only if you're a Myrmecologist...

11,000 species is a bit of worthless trivia...unless, of course, you're a myrmecologist, a scientist specializing in ants...

...which, of course is a sub-specialist of being an entemologist, who is a scientist who studies the very broad category of all insects. 

So, who cares? 

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, marketing effectiveness, how to write a sales plan, sales personas, sales effectivness

Just to light up your memory banks, way back in August, August 21st to be specific, it seemed that everyone in the U.S. was caught up in The Summer of 2017 Eclipse Fever, when for the first time in 99 years, we underwent a coast-to-coast phenomena.  Pretty basic stuff, but having said that, just as one example, one million people traveled to Oregon for three day just to grab the first view of the first light.  Small towns in the Midwest with populations below 1,000 welcomed tens of thousands of visitors.  Tens of thousands of people overpaid for the special glasses and overnight deliveries. 

And then...just as suddenly...it all ended. We packed up our telescopes and stowed our sleeping bags...and the special glasses...into our campers, and we just as quickly changed back into our workaday lives marking off April 8, 2024 on our digital calendars. 

All of that craziness and hype just follows the predictability of the rhythm of eclipses.  It will be the same in 2024. 

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales plan process, sales planning, improving sales productivity

There's no such thing as a born salesperson

As most everyone knows, I didn't come up the management ladder through Sales or Marketing, but through  Manufacturing and Engineering, and then by luck...or mistake...got promoted to become president of a good size division of a major corporation.  As a result, the first day of my being president was also my first day of running a sales organization.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management boot camps

Forget "ABC" - "Always be Closing". 

It's old school, offensive and counter to what we should be doing as salespeople, which is to sell value and create trust with our prospects and customers, and not force them to close. 

According to Karen Penticost, VP of Strategic Development at Envision Technology Advisors, who was part of the management team working with us at our Sales Management Boot Camp at the MIT Endicott House last week, we should...

"always be interviewing"

 

When asked why, Karen's responses were...

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, improving sales productivity, Sales Hiring Perfectly, Sales Hiring & Onboarding