Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

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

JUST What is ENERGY?

For such an important and critical word, "Energy" is defined in the dictionary as a noun with the unemotional description of "the capacity for vigorous activity".

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, Sales Hiring Perfectly, Sales Hiring & Onboarding

It's been an absolutely superb summer !

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

"Time goes on. So whatever you're going to do, do it. Do it now. Don't wait"
--Robert De Niro

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices

I have the privilege of living and working in a few interesting places in New England

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

Saturday morning found me at the Winhall General Store in downtown Bondville, Vermont (pop. 647) talking with Red, who was out reading the Brattleboro Reformer on the front porch bench, along with his yellow lab, Blue. 

Another perfect day in paradise, and for me a perfect day to "get things done".  "Getting things done", is what promoted me on Friday afternoon to load up the car with cats, equipment, bags of Home Depot garden rocks, and, most importantly cases of cheap red wine, and make the trek from the NH beach to the VT mountains. 

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales producitivity

The Rhythms of Life...and Sales

This time of year, that phrase of "What's up for the summa'?"  jumps into our vocabulary whether we want it to or not.  It's the natural rhythm of the seasons, and, right now, with the catalyst of hotter weather and the kids being out of school, that rhythm pushes us into figuring out exactly what we're going to be doing over the next 10 weeks. 

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices

You finished Q1 either on (or not) plan.  Congratulations in either case !

Let's spend detailed time this week or next figuring out why and then rebalance Q2

Probably the last time you looked at your 2017 Sales Plan was January, and maybe even last December at the time the board approved the company's business plan.

Then you jumped into the deep end of the pool with your January sales meeting after which everyone hit the road and their desks totally focused on execution.  

It's been a blazing hot and exhausting Q1, and Q2 promises to be more of the same. Certainly, nothing is going to slow down.

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

Here we are in the final 20 hours of the quarter. Maybe 10 today, certainly 10 tomorrow, and then it's over with the turn of the digital page as we rush into April on Monday morning

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, improving sales productivity

I used to have a cat named "Bean", and when I was spending a lot more time at the house in Vermont, she and I would go walking in my woodlot, Bean following dutifully behind me as the afternoon light filtered into the perfectly manicured woods.  For 40 years of living in this valley where I come from six generations of Vermonters living there before me, my motto always has been... "A clean forest is a happy forest".

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