Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

Had lunch with Jerry yesterday.  One of my favorite venture guys in Boston.  Bright, energetic, a great sports guy, but there we both sat on State Street eating salmon and not wolfing down Fenway Franks and attending Opening Day.  My excuse was that I opted for the root canal that I had just had yesterday morning rather than watch the Sox.  Jerry’s was that he felt guilty after we had both broken numerous prior meeting plans, but that really can’t be true about feeling guilty, since, as I mentioned, Jerry’s a venture guy.   By the way if you want to watch a point-counterpoint discussion/argument between Jerry Bird from MTDC and me on “Venture Capital or Angel Funding-Which Money Should I Take?”, go to the 128 Innovation Capital Group site to register.  It’s on the morning of May 10^th and should be a lot of fun as I take these smart venture guys down a peg or two…or maybe not.

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, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans

$349.51. That’s the amount of my March electric bill in Vermont-the house that I live in at most eight days a month. BTW, I pay $84 in NH, where I live 20 days a month.

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

My new iPad was delivered last Monday.   On the marketing bell curve, I’m on the far left side of the “early adopters”, and although I’m no longer sleeping on the sidewalk waiting for the store to open, I always like the excitement of new toys.  Most of the time the new toy syndrome plays out perfectly in products such as Apple’s, and sometimes it backfires like when I bought that piece-of-junk Touareg the week it was introduced.  With computer products, back in the day, I would then block out the rest of the morning and afternoon to upload, download, plug in, plug out, reboot and reboot again after reading through inch thick manuals. 

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

Coffee this morning?  Of course, and each of us has our own thought process in making the choice of whether it’s going to be Green Mountain, Starbucks or Dunkin'.  Since we have lots of Keurigs strategically placed in our various kitchens, the Boston office and our home offices, my choice is less about the coffee, but the convenience and the variety.  But, then that’s me, and as the LP (Little Princess) often reminds me that since I have the taste buds of a warthog, I’m pretty sure that I can’t tell the subtle differences. 

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

Most people are wired to like consistency.  Consistency represents a recognizable pattern, and in the way we run our crazy lives, patterns provide relative predictability.  As a result, if I’m doing things in a somewhat consistent way, I know that I can naturally increase my percentage of predictability, which gives my brain a tiny shot of dopamine, which makes me “feel good”. 

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, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans

Finally, the first big snow Thursday - 14 inches at Stratton and 6 on the NH beach.  As any addicted snowboarder like me knows, the adage at any ski area is that…“there are no friends on a powder day”…just get headed up the hill as quickly as possible.  Since I had already made the wise decision not to make the commute to Boston on Thursday, calls and texts came flooding in all day from people looking for me who were either headed to or already on the hill.  Unfortunately, I had to make a choice about my time and rather than make the 3 hour trip to Stratton, I stayed glued to the computer and the phone all day.  An okay day all the same, but of course, I would have rather been figuring out how to avoid the trees in the glades than calculating how to avoid the politics of a sales comp plan for one of our customers.

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

I’m an enabling kind of guy…I think.  I enjoy making things happen in my day-to-day: connecting people, improving this and building that.  I like tearing things apart that aren’t working well or are badly fraying around the edges and then reconstructing them on a firmer foundation. 

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

Last week’s blog dealt with that big word, “TRUST” as seen from the other side of the windshield of the increasingly complex world of the sales warrior.  In a fast-paced, over-charged environment which bombards me with thousands of marketing messages a day, just where does that trust thing figure in?  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, 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

"You need to trust me on this..."

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

 

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, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training, sales plans