Derby Management's "Competitive Edge" Blog

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

Ran into church a bit late last Sunday to find everyone robustly singing “America the Beautiful”.  With those words and that spirit still ringing in my head when I returned home, I promptly finished decorating the house which now has flags and bunting covering both decks and enough other iParty stuff everywhere to make red, white and blue the official colors of the summer.   I’m not exactly sure why this patriotic spirit cascades in me every summer, except that I do know that it feels good.  It’s not because any one thing happened-we didn’t just joystick another Al Qaeda leader or anything like that.  It’s just because it’s simply the 4^th, business is pretty good, and I figure if we can stick it out through the long hot summer of politicians beating one another up, the economy should stabilize just a bit more after the elections. 

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

I had just graduated from BC and had a ticket to go to  the University of Chicago for graduate work where I would have studied some dusty, esoteric slice of Elizabethan writing, ending up as an English professor in a small college somewhere.  I still remember the look of shock and dismay x number of years ago now on a hot July afternoon when I announced to my father that I was not going to Chicago (which I did years later) and that I was leaving for Peace Corps training that September.  135 of us began language studies and survival training that fall in Syracuse (no better place, of course, to train in prep for equatorial Africa) and about 80 of us finally made our way to Tanzania's Dar es Salaam the following January.

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, jobs, finding sales jobs

I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at Middlesex Bank’s CEO Forum last week.  A great bank, superb guests and for me, a fun opportunity to talk about something that I've fervently believed in ever since I started the company 22 years ago- how to build your competitive edge.  Aptly named, our long running newsletter, The Competitive Edge, and this blog speak to what I carry around as a religion in how I think about business in general and especially the world of sales.

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, business coaching, leadership, economic stimulus, The Competitive Edge, strategic planning

On the way to NYC this morning on the 5:30 Acela out of Boston. No better way to travel. Nice and quiet, surrounded with Wi-Fi, food and great service for a three hour trip with lots of work to do. What’s not to like? A superb way to travel, an efficient way to get work done, plus I really like trains, which are by now baked into my DNA, perhaps just like Vermont has become part of my six generation heritage.

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

     SUMMERRRRR...

Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, 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, meeting networking, networking

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, sales optimication, marketing management

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 quota, sales training, sales plans