Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

 

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

What's Important?

Two weeks ago, I underwent bypass surgery at MGH. "Big Success" is all I wanted to hear, and those were the exact two words scribbled boldly across my discharge papers.  What's ahead are a few weeks of recovery and exercise, and then, just as I have heard from hundreds of blog readers and Facebook friends, "better than before".  That phrase by itself raises a lot more questions, and one of the most important of those to be answered is that of "What's Important?".

See, I thought that I was already "better than before", and have always exercised every day, and snowboarded and surfed on the weekends.  Couple those activities with relatively good diets, and I should be the postercild for "Healthy (older) Boy" of the year. 2014 didn't seem to end that way, but on the very positive side of all of this, 2014 is now way back in the rear view mirror.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales optomization, sales management boot camp, sales culture

Happy 2015!  

And, with the coming of this new calendar year...of life, of Sales, of relationships, of exploring, and, most importantly, of learning, also comes the requirement to take a look around and assess where you personally are in your sales and marketing career.  Part of this personal responsibility comes merely as a result of turning the page in the calendar and being able to broadly look out over the landscape of the next 12 months that are about to unfold...whether you're ready or not.   Make a few resolutions if you must, but, most importantly, place a firm stake in the ground now, and take control of where you want be and what you want to have accomplished at this exact time in January, 2016.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management, sales effectiveness, sales planning, sales tools, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans, sales effictiveness

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”                   -Mike Tyson

If your last image of Iron Mike chewing off the ear of Evander Holyfield was a bit too graphic, then maybe some of the following highly positive quotes might be more representative of the reasons for careful planning...just so that you don't get punched in the face.

Tags: Sales Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales planning, sales plans, business tools, business planning, business coaching, business plans

3 Simple Tips for More Effective Sales Connections.

As a sales guy, I have no problem with making connections.  For my business associates.  For my MIT and Tufts students.  For our customers of the firm.  It's part of the process of living and working in a tight ecosystem like Boston...or in any other city for that matter.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales training

At the firm, we have the privilige of working one-on-one with hundreds of heads of sales and CEOs every year.  It's exciting and complex work that often comes down to discussing, assessing and implementing  a series of best practices that are heavily based in metrics and data.  From all of these interactions, there appear to be two or three priority concerns that these execs have in common regarding the management of their companies, and I've listed them below in priority order:  

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training

• -220 work days in the year
• -"the best" sales people work 57 hours/week
• -15%/week is the average time totally wasted
• -only 57%/week spent on actual "selling"
• -most deals take 6 calls & meetings to close
• -most salespeople give up after 3 calls
• -most salespeople create 65%+ of their own leads

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training

Perhaps you're a weekend athlete and chase the little white ball around on Saturdays. Maybe, you're on the other end of the spectrum like my friend, John Sohikian, back on the bike clocking 30 miles runs just two weeks after major surgery. James Geshwiler, one of the two Managing Directors of Common Angels, is out rowing on the Charles most mornings in every possible weather condition, including a little ice now and then.  Me?  I'm somewhere north of the center, in the gym promptly every weekday morning at 5, thinking through the day and typically counting the minutes until breakfast.
 

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, Sales Management Best Practices, sales and marketing best practices, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales culture

April 21st marks the 118th running of the Boston Marathon.  Considering the tragedy that occurred last year, this particular marathon will be steeped in pride and emotion as a record number of runners participate to show their support for the event and the runners, along with their respect for those who died and were injured in last year's horror.

Tags: Sales Optimization, Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales management training

Driving back from running one of our boot camps in Rochester last Friday, I decided to stop at the house in (the frozen tundra of) Vermont rather than make the drive even longer by continuing on to the NH beach.  Looking at the house, as I drove in late Friday afternoon, I noticed that there were...

Tags: Sales Best Practices, Sales Management Best Practices, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales planning, sales optomization, sales boot camps