Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

I've found that there are two types of managers who work in our profession of Sales...

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, sales management, sales management effectiveness

Back-in-the-day... MRP, ERP, Quality Circles, ISO900, DFM, KANBAN, and a myriad of other manufacturing productivity improvement tools and technologies were the structural keys to the success of the resurgence of quality and manufacturing superiority in the U.S.  

In the '70's and '80's, as a direct result of the new-age religions of processes, standardized tools, technologies and metrics preached by the High Priest, W. Edwards Deming, and national activities such as the Malcolm Baldridge Award, U.S. manufacturing steadily pulled itself back to worldwide superiority in such diverse markets as cars, appliances, in semiconductors and general electronics.  This refocus to massive productivity and quality gains, resulting in much higher levels of customer satisfaction, took a national call-to-action spread over a couple of decades, and it worked, and it continues to work today with US manufacturing productivity output doubling over the last 15 years.

And Yet, Sales Productivity in too many companies Sucks...

• In the last 10 years, selling costs rose faster than revenues.
• In the last 5 years, SG&A costs have increased 12.5% (Alix Partners 2013)
• According to Sales Benchmark Index, in the last 3 years, sales productivity declined for the world’s largest sales forces.  Only 41 of the SBI 100 companies increased sales productivity per employee.
• There's been an average productivity decline of 2.5 % over the last three years.

Joe Gusfaston, Chairman of Brainshark, the industry leader in Sales Readiness, who consolidated many of these stats, noted in an article published by Forbes that "Sales enablement is about how to improve productivity of sales by squeezing out inefficiencies and maximizing effectiveness,”    

Leaders like W. Edwards Deming, back-in-the-day, for manufacturing, and guys like Joe Gustafson today for Sales Readiness & Enablement, understand the sales productivity crisis and are actually doing something about it.
 

which is Why We've Teamed Up with Hubspot on March 20th For...

"Constructing a Winning Blueprint for 2017"

Most of us in our firm grew up on the manufacturing floors and in the engineering labs of our prior companies until we came to understand the reality of the simple business credo that..."Success in business is about just two things: Sales ! and other stuff" (Professor Howard Anderson, Harvard Business School).

We've also been devotees about everything Hubspot since the company was founded.  We use their tools, they are customers of ours, and we of them. 40+ of my Tufts alums (very happily) work there.  The Hubspot technologies are the backbones of my course in Marketing, and most recently my new course "The Art & Science of Sales".  Many of my class lecturers are my alums now working (very happily) at Hubspot.  All of this is very symbiotic, the process works perfectly and everyone benefits.

As a result of that partnership, we decided to co-host with Hubspot this "Constructing a Winning Blueprint for 2017" event on March 20th at the Hubspot headquarters in Cambridge, which is focused directly at the senior leaders (CEOs, and Heads of Marketing and Sales) of manufacturing companies. Kicking off with an introduction by Hubspot co-founder, CTO, and tech visionary, Dharmesh Shah, this unique event will outline the intersections of systems, processes and metrics between the rapidly evolving worlds of Sales & Marketing productivity and the productivity improvements being made on the factory floor.

The Agenda:

• 11-12 PM -Lunch & Networking
• 12-1 PM-Welcome and presentation from Dharmesh Shah, CTO and Co-Founder of HubSpot
• 1-2 PM Manufacturing CEO Panel, facilitated by Jack Derby
• 2-3 Q&A, Discussions and Networking

For more information on the event, and to register just go to this  LINK.  

Also, you should download and read our manufacturing eBook, " Constructing a Winning Blueprint for 2017”, at this  LINK.

Questions?  

Just connect with me at jack@derbymanagement.com or with my partner, John Routhier, who, with Hubspot, is in charge of this event at john@derbymanagement.com, and we'll fill in the details.

Have a great day selling today! 

 

 

Head Coach  

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

Boston, MA 02117
Jack's Cell: 617-504-4222 
jack@derbymanagement.com

 

 

 

 

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

I just pulled the plug on my ISP.  

Big firm, terrible connectivity, and consistently poor service, so I finally made the decision to pull the plug last week since I just couldn't be held hostage anymore.  Lee Drake, superb tech CEO, at his IT support firm, OS Cubed, had been telling me to do this for the years, but I didn't want to go through the pain of disruption. Finally the pain of staying connected outweighed the fear of the pain of disruption. The move happens next week, the process will be transparent, and I could not be happier. The point of this introduction is that when I looked up our background with the ISP, I discovered that we had been with them for 20 years !!  

20 years?!?

20 years ago, the World Wide Web had just been invented.  We moved to WWW using Mosaic from Arpanet where we had stuck it out for years using arcane commands, slow speeds and calling people on our landline telephone to ask if they did in fact receive the email (although it wasn't called email, we did not have html, nor did the words that came through on the screen look like any email that we know today).   

Which brings me thinking about the 2017 concept of "Day 1", and the adoption of faster change in our business, in our sales development, and in my teaching Marketing, and, with this semester, a new course in Sales.  I should have made this ISP switch five years ago, and for some wacko reason, I just stuck it out piling up one wasted hour after another.  2017 is about every day being Day 1 and initiating more rapid change that brings more value to our customers' businesses.

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

I was at a board meeting a few weeks ago as a new director for a well established public company. As I sat there at my first meeting thinking about boards, board roles, board interactions and a myriad of other director related stuff, I reflected on what I've learned over the years about being a director.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, selling skills, Sales quota, sales training, sales listening

Most mornings when I'm getting ready for the day at the gym after working out, I find myself shaving in the sink area near Dr. Steve, a world-renowned surgeon. Over the years, I've gotten to know him very well, and recently he's been a wonderful sounding board for me as I maneuvered my way through the maze of hospital procedures, protocols and processes.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management training, sales optomization, sales jobs, sales management boot camp

A friend of mine just became the head of a large bank, which is one of our larger customers.  A solid and very comfortable guy that your first reaction to is... "I'd just like to sit around talking to to him".  Ex-football player from Dartmouth who now maxes out on a couple of Tough Mudders every year.  Great family man, just a nice guy, who is very focused on what he and his managers need to do in terms of performance and accountability. 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management training, sales training, sales plans, sales management boot camp, strategic planning

Monday's Boston Globe:  Just after 7 Sunday evening, with 2.9 more inches of fresh snow blanketing Boston, the National Weather Service announced that the city had notched its snowiest winter since records started being kept in 1872.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales planning, sales management training, sales management boot camp, sales producitivity

As we move through March and the end of the first quarter, I always regard this time of year as a critical experiment of the new ideas, new strategies, new tactics, new activities and new people that you and the team planned for way back in October and November.  I like to think that both company-wide business plans and departmental-specific sales plans always work because, whether or not they result in the actual forecasted numbers, the planning framework that has been created is actually more important than the results since it provides a consistent process and structure that you can refine and refine again during the balance of the year.  By keeping to this process consistently, I guarantee that you will ultimately get to your goals and objectives.

Tags: sales productivity, sales coaching, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, selling, Sales quota, sales training, sales management boot camp, strategic planning

Here we are at the beginning of the last month of the quarter, and as managers and sales professionals, we're consistently reviewing ....

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales, sales management, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training, sales management boot camp

 

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales plans, sales boot camp, sales producitivity, sales management boot camps