Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

Over the long weekend of the 4th, I listened to two threads of stories...

Tags: sales effectiveness, sales management boot camp, business coaching, improving sales productivity, best sales practices;, sales management productivity, sales effectivness

Last night, I watched the documentary about the climber Alex Honnold, who is the star of Free Solo, the documentary about his ascent of El Capitan that won an Oscar last year.  

El Cap is a 3,000ft sheer rock face in Yosemite, California, and he climbed it without a rope.

Although Alex is known in the public eye as a free solo-ist, most climbing he does takes place on a rope. He typically won’t free solo a difficult route until it’s been thoroughly rehearsed while attached to one.

So that’s what makes this photo here fun...and of course, here he’s roped in.

Tags: Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales management training, selling skills, sales training, Making Tough Choices, sales management productivity, sales readiness

With last weekend's nasty weatha' at the NH beach and even more snow stopping my planned Saturday mornin' trip to Winhall/Bondville VT, I took the time to post to my 6,700 LinkedIn friends my "Six Best Sales Practices for Selling Normally in Abnormal Times",

This comes from a webinar with I shared with Laurie White, President of the Providence Chamber of Commerce, and her superb members. 

I thought that the questions raised from these real-life business owners and salespeople were perfect examples of what it takes to work and survive on the front line in these chaotic times.  

Tags: Making Tough Choices, sales management productivity, selling trust, sales motivation, 2020 sales plans, writing sales plans, sales readiness

Questions:

• When will we get back to work?
• When can I start selling again?
• What's the messaging I should be using?

In a few hours, I'll be leading a webinar with 100+ business owners of New England destination hotels and vacation resorts who are looking for answers to these and 60 plus other questions that they've submitted in advance. 

These are the people right at the epicenter of the struggle who have had hundreds of cancellations for long-planned weddings, reunions and business conferences planned specifically around "getting away to the peaceful, bucolic and quiet beaches and mountains of New England".  And now, they have nothing but questions, time on their hands and the adjacent fears of unpaid bills and not knowing what to tell long term employees that they've already laid off. 

Tags: sales leadership, value propositions, sales management productivity, creating trust in sales, 2020 sales plans, sales readiness

This is exactly where we hoped we would not be, and yet, here we are today in the belly of the beast.  

Not many of us any longer are hoping that this situation will get better, since what we have experienced most recently in the harsh reality of the last seven days, clearly defines that the personal and business impact will become a lot worse before it improves.  I am neither capable nor technically equipped to make any projections, and my personal business expectations are just as good or as bad as yours, but having said that, I, like you, run businesses and, like you, I'm a pragmatist, and I know that we are in this chaotic situation for a long time until vaccines hit the market.  

Tags: improving sales productivity, Making Tough Choices, sales management productivity, creating trust in sales, 2020 sales plans, writing sales plans, sales readiness

No one needs to tell us how difficult this is!

Tags: sales forecasting, sales leadership, sales management productivity, sales effectivness, 2020 business plans, 2020 sales plans

As I write this on a 14-degree sunny Saturday morning, I'm just in from snowblowing deep in the woods of Winhall (or Bondville) Vermont (pop.647).  Known by the State of Vermont, the town of Winhall is-according to the Feds-also the village of Winhall in the town Bondville.  Or maybe it's the other way around. Hard to figure.   

Tags: sales leadership, sales success, Sales Hiring Perfectly, sales management plans, sales management productivity, selling trust, sales motivation, writing sales plans, sales readiness

Right now I'm about four hours away from my first Marketing course of this new semester at Tufts, and I never know who's more nervous or excited about the upcoming 13 weeks- me or the students? 

Experience says that it's always me!.

Tags: sales leadership, sales management productivity, Tufts Entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, 2020 business plans, 2020 sales plans

 

Tags: sales management effectiveness, Making Tough Choices, jack derby professor at Tufts, sales management productivity, Tufts Entrepreneurship, 2020 business plans

Positive or negative, emphatic or weak, powerful or not, you and I are brands!  

The fact that you're reading this post means that you have already defined some level of brand for me.

• It could be the Professor Guy, the Vermont Guy, the Sales & Marketing Guy, the NH Surfing Guy, the management consultant guy...or someone else.  The fact is that when you read this post, which now has close to 10,000 subscribers, or you connect with me by phone, text or email, immediately, for a few synapses of a few seconds, you've defined me as a brand.
• Similarly, for that instant when we do connect, I immediately associate a defined brand for you.  First, for a few milliseconds, I immediately categorize you as a student, a customer, a partner, a prospect or an investment, and then in that same instant, I picture (not really an image, but a composite video blur of a photo, a voice, a job, and an attribute into a definition of you as a brand.

What's the largest selling cereal in the U.S.?

Even with cereal sales slightly declining, Cheerios again and again, tops the list in market share with a strong commanding need.  Even though the specific sub-brand of Honey Nut Cheerios leads the overall family of the various Cheerios brands, in general, the brand reaction that we all instantly make follows a connected chain of links that leads to their well marketed value proposition...

- Cheerios is made from oats

Tags: branding plans, how to write a marketing plan, how to brand, Sales Hiring & Onboarding, marketing planning, sales management productivity