Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

Just walked in from my early morning walk on the beach.  Good weather and bad, summer and winter, whenever, I have the luxury of not going into the office first thing, I walk the mile long, perfectly crescent-curved beach just outside our door.  With the constant sound and smell of the ocean all night, there’s a consistent tug in my head every morning to explore what the ocean delivered. Sometimes tons of seaweed, sometime lost seal pups like this guy earlier this month, and most often just the richness of the ocean.

While Jan, my wife, sea glass jewelry designer and watercolor artist, searches for the perfect pieces of sea glass, I set out on the much more plebian task of picking up trash washed in on the night tide.  I guess that I could euphemistically call it “flotsam & jetsam”, but I never can remember which is which, and, in reality, it’s just plain trash. When Dustin Hoffman, in The Graduate was told that all he needed to remember was the word “plastic” to ensure his success, I think that same word as I walk along, three foot gripper tongs in hand, picking up 20 pounds of daily plastic  either as abandoned beach toys or washed up debris from the lobster boats.  Anyways, it’s good for the ocean and my head.  Plus, it provides me the opportunity to get out early in the morning with an unstructured, quiet hour to think through various business issues.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, Sales quota, sales training

I’ve recently been receiving these short articles like the one below from ChiefExecutive.net.  Well written, to the point and solid factual data from the men and women who actually run businesses.  When I finished a hard day of field research on the beach yesterday, I found this not-surprising article in my Inbox, which fit nicely into my summer re-reading of Blue Ocean Strategy.

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

Just arrived in Vermont for a few days.  What a huge difference from the NH shore, and it’s just not the beach-mountain thing.  It’s the lushness of Vermont.  It’s not just that everything is green; it’s that green is everywhere, including the haying fields in front of the house that I thought for sure who be burned out just like our grass in NH.   It’s good to know that some things-like Vermont-never change and that a process is a process.

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

A very tough day yesterday.  As if we didn’t have enough problems trying to sell stuff in The Dog Days of Summer, as I was driving to four different sales meetings yesterday, I kept listening to the news on Bloomberg.  I found that I literally had to take 10 minutes by myself before I walked into every account, using all of my Psyche Up Skills, to keep my head focused in the right place as the day wore on, and the market kept plummeting. 

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

There are Laws…

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, closing sales, marketing effectiveness, marketing productivity, Sales quota, sales training, management

Everyone thinks about time.  Other than money,  most of us are always trying to rethink and rebalance our time commitments.  Time to be somewhere, time to pick up the kids, time to work, time left in the month to sell stuff, time to go on vacation.  It’s just that we think, we work our sales activities around, and we plan our non-work around the central issue of TIME.  

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training

There are no excellent salespeople!

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

                                                

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, improved sales management, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, closing sales, Sales quota, sales training

On Monday, The WSJ published the US Chamber of Commerce's June survey results on the outlook of 1400 business execs small business across the country.  And the answer is:  "No confidence", which of course (surprise of surprises...) was a real shock to me and I'm sure everyone else in the small business community.

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, selling, sales management training, selling skills, sales optomization, Sales quota, sales training, small business management

With The Perfect July 4^th weekend tucked away, and while I was lost in the myriad of activities from watching 3 back-to-back nights of fireworks on the beach, to singing an enthusiastic “God Bless America” at Sunday mass to watching a group of red, white and blue painted teenagers loft a huge flag and lead hundreds of people on the very crowded beach to sing “Happy Birthday”, I got around to thinking about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

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