Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

This past weekend was spent at my high school reunion.  With an open house reception at the town library Friday night extending to a Town Day parade, receptions and a town hall party on Saturday and finally to a “See-Ya-in-5-Years” brunch on Sunday morning, the town of Arlington welcomed back its returning artists and dancers, pilots and soldiers, nurses and docs, professors and teachers, business leaders and tow truck drivers with open arms.  

With high school yearbook pictures hung around our necks, each of us bravely entered the uncertainty of greeting friends and lovers who we may not have seen since graduation decades ago or at least since the last reunion.  And what did each of us learn and take away from those three days of sharing stories and pictures, laughs and tears and absorbing an overall superb experience?   I think that it is that real friendships never go away.  No question, you can go home again, take a trip back into nostalgia and history and then jump ahead to the fullness of exploring that newly kindled relationship one more time.  Why?  Because it’s part of the DNA that exists in our head and is baked into who we are and not what we are.

Tags: sales productivity, sales coaching, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales coach, sales management coach, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales jobs

It’s been a superb summer!  Simply…superb…no better word.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans

To a fault (yea, I know, I have many), I'm a big believer in the rhythm of business and the rhythm of the seasons.  Maybe as a confirmed 6th generation Vermonter, paying attention to the seasonal ebb and flow becomes a necessity living in an environment which only has two seasons:  "snow" and "bad sleddin' ".  In reality, Vermonters actually live with at least 7 different seasons which include "Mud", "Hayin'", and "Summa' Tourist" intermixed among the Big 4. 

At my house on the NH coast, the year is divided much more simply into the seasons of "Beach", which is anything above 55 degrees and "No Beach", which includes hats, heavy jackets and the necessity to keep walking fast.  Yesterday Jack, my favorite lifeguard who just happens to be a software marketing guru in his alter ego real life, pointed out that there were only 7 more days before the season ended, to which I responded... "What the heck are you talking about???"  But, sadly, he's right.  Jack's starting a great job next week with a big corporate powerhouse in Boston, the kids are back to school, my teaching at MIT and Tufts starts the first week in  September, and I'll soon be back to my daily 4:00 AM morning commute to the Boston office.

Tags: sales productivity, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, selling skills, closing sales, sales training, sales plans

Who's the Best?

Lots of interesting comments from my last blog on the Rolling Stones.  Everything from “You’re showing your age”, to “How can you put the Stones ahead of the Beatles…Bruce…Zeppelin…Hendrix…Black Eyed Peas...and so on?”   Since I wanted to get everyone thinking about how to keep themselves and their sales personas young, it looks like from all of the emails that I received that I hit a cord.   Sometime this fall, I’ll follow up with my favorite/most successful individual artist.   Someone who, like the Stones, is highly successful, always on the edge and keeps reinventing themselves...but is much younger.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans

No question that the Stones are the greatest rock band in music history...and least in my world.  They’ve released 24 studio albums, done nine concert albums and have album sales estimated at more than 200 million worldwide.  But most importantly, they’re still at it, still writing, still rocking and still living large.  As the Stones celebrate their 50^th year as a band, and Mick and Keith both turn 70, there are talks of another world tour.  And, if there is, I’m in the front row, as usual.  Never missed a U.S. tour, and I don’t plan to for what might be the last one, but then I said that about both the Steel Wheels and Voodoo Lounge tours.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, leadership, finding sales jobs

I've been a student of the comics forever and well remember waiting dutifully for my father to come every night and hand me the Boston Traveler, which I then immediately thumbed to the funnies.  Today, I'm still addicted to the comics although it's my iPad now that delivers my daily fix, since my daily download of BostonGlobe.com sadly does not include the comics.  Dilbert continues to be one of my favorites for the simple reason that the parallels to daily business life are so close to reality that they either make me laugh or cringe.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, management, business tools, business planning, business coaching, strategic planning

You gotta love my newly adopted state of New Hampshire.  Where else can one cross the state border, and the first exit from any direction has a state liquor store which also sells 50 plus different types of lottery tickets.  The second exit has a store that sells fireworks right next to a line of tattoo shops, and between the two exits are 8 lanes of toll booths, two of which require you to speed through at 65 miles an hour while your EZ Pass clicks away.  Add to all of this that NH is the only state without a mandatory seat belt law, and even though it has the highest percentage of motorcycle owners to total population in the US, we do not require helmets.   And of course, our state motto, “Live Free or Die”, is the subject of many a tattooed body.  I always say, “We don’t call NH-The Granite State-for nothing”.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans

Just sitting here on the beach, doing some field research of course, and thinking through the relationships of time and sales.  All of us who are in the profession of sales, no matter what our level or experience, are measured by some metric related to time.  Quota/month, Y/Y sales, ramp speed and countless other metrics measure our abilities to perform within  specific periods of time.  Time is the name of the game; it’s the measure of top of the pack and bottom of the heap; it’s how we get paid and it’s the one metric that measures us against our peers as to who goes to “Club” and who goes to “On Plan”.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs

A superb 4^th of July week.  Great weather here in New England…not so in other states without power…and certainly the word “heat” was repeatedly in everyone’s vocabulary.  The other word that I often heard last week and especially on the 4^th was “leadership”, or more correctly, the “lack of leadership”. 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs

Real dangerous for me to bring up a subject as far reaching as “personality” since that immediately brings to question my own personality (as in “none”), and I’m sure that we do not want to go there.  No, this has to do more with the personalities that we and the members of our sales team portray in our online presence. 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales plan process, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, marketing effectiveness, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, finding sales jobs, marketing management