Day 21. Boss? No Boss?

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Nov 30, 2010

Often times bringing one’s manager into a sales situation late in the funnel process produces positives results. A different perspective. A new set of eyes…and ears.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling, improved sales management, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, small business management

Wake Up to Day 22: Hit the Road

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Mon, Nov 29, 2010

Back at it today after a four day break. Hopefully you had time to decompress, grab a bit of sleep and just relax. With just 22 days left in the selling season, the pressure is on, so it’s time to shake things up a bit.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling

25: Two Thoughts Today

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Nov 24, 2010

It’s an interesting day since on one hand, you can accept the thought that the world is traveling or planning to travel later today; therefore, there’s no sense following up with your prospects in your December pipeline.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling

26 Days More to Succeed

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Nov 23, 2010

Try something different today. Tomorrow no one is going to be paying attention to you.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling

27 More (Kind Of…): Perfecting the ROI

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Mon, Nov 22, 2010

27 more selling days left in the year assumes that you (and more importantly, your prospects) are working this Wednesday, December 23rd and all 5 of the days between Christmas and New Year’s. The probability is pretty low that this is going to be the case, but days are days. The other issue that you need to consider in creating your own personal selling and closing calender between now and the rest of the year is that many of those days you define are not going to be fully available given the time of year with budget meetings and the end-of-the-year crunch.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness

27 & Counting-Be True to Your School

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Nov 19, 2010

So with just 27 more selling days left in the year, and you sitting there today frustrated that you still have not been able to break through to the key decision maker at your prospect, the purpose of this little blog series is to provide you with a tip a day. At this time of year, just leaving more voicemails and sending the same old emails is merely following of The Strategy of Hope.  Not a good strategy to follow at anytime and certainly not now.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling

29 & Counting

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Nov 17, 2010

Today, there are 29 more days in the year in which we could close orders that are in our pipelines. Given typical sales cycles and the normal B2B complex selling processes, it’s almost impossible to believe that anything now that’s near the top of our funnels is going to move quickly downstream through the myriad of decision makers and signoffs so that it’s going to close before December 31st. So, right now, we’re talking about stuff in the narrow end of the funnel, typically in the stages that follow sending your proposals out: in some form of negotiation or in the seemingly black hole of “getting sign offs”.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness

Doing What Ya Love…

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Sat, Nov 13, 2010

Just back from an early morning walk on the beach. Love to get out there on the non-snow weekends just after the sun has come up, smell the ocean, figure out what’s changed on the beach from the tides the night before and walk the entire length of the beach picking up the plastic sea trash. Gives me something do, justifies the walk and keeps me green-friendly something I’m not in my day-to-day business life.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling

Prep for the 57 Days Left in 2010

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Fri, Oct 15, 2010

Jack’s Vermont – Roots

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, selling skills

Rhythms & Balance

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Mon, Oct 11, 2010

Back in Vermont for the long weekend and find myself-as usual-trying to balance my time with the seasonal rhythms of the long list of “Things to Do Before The Snow” hanging in the workshop with the necessity of taking quiet time to do real work that just can’t be squeezed into the frentic workweek.  No complaints here since it is what it is, and, quite frankly, I enjoy the pace plus I have the privilige of working and playing in the mountains of Vermont and on the beach  in NH.  By the way, an interesting factoid is that Vermont used to be seaside property-500 million years ago-and the acclaimed Vermont marble is, in fact, created from miles of compacted seashells squeezed up from sea floor as the continents pushed toward one another over those millenia.

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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling, sales management training, selling skills, Sales quota, leadership