At Derby Management, the fall is always a very busy time working with management teams on overall strategy while taking a deep dive into the sales and marketing processes, the tools and the people upgrades that will need to be made in order to accomplish 2026 forecasts.

At Tufts and the Derby Entrepreneurship Center, we're now 7 weeks into the 13-week semester of my Science of Marketing course, with actually only 5 weeks of content left before the final team presentations made to the company project presidents and VPs during the first week of December.

With 40% of the students' team grade being decided by the company management, the overall tenor of the classes is now no longer about concepts or strategy; it's about tactical execution, figuring out lead conversion rates and planning out detailed campaigns complete with financials and CAC calculations.  Depending on the company's objectives, implementation tactics cover a wide range from SEO, video, social media, and event management to pricing scenarios, primary research and website upgrades. Most exciting for me is that much of the content during the semester is delivered by my highly experienced alums...all below 30...who are active professionals.  This week featured Caroline Gingold, a gifted PE software investor, pointing out the intricacies of SEO and Ramiro Sarabia, with a deep background at Meta and TikTok, demonstrating the details of various social channels and ad buying.   

It's also that time of year when I begin the process of planning plan out the six companies for the spring semester starting during the first week of January. 

The new syllabus along with the profiles and objectives of the six companies will be sent out to the new students on December 1st giving them five days to make decisions on their company choices.  Each project is assigned five to six juniors and seniors with a TA and requires weekly meetings with company management. The course is complex and demanding, requiring significant time to be spent outside the classroom working both individually and as a team.  This semester's companies range from a large manufacturing company to established software companies to a CPG company plus a concept-level startup. If you are interested in participating, just connect with me.  I will send you instructions, and then we can do a zoom to talk about details.  

Have a great day selling today and enjoy this weekend.  If you have never been to The Head of the Charles, this Saturday is worth the traffic.  Living in Boston for 40 years, for me this is one of those events that makes Boston unique!
 

It's time to begin your business planning for what lies ahead in 2026.

Think about taking a half day in November to begin your business and sales planning process for 2026. Here's our free how-to ebooks for a few ideas:

"Writing the Winning Sales Plan"
"Writing the Winning Business Plan"
"Writing the Winning Marketing Plan"
"The Marketing of Me"

We outline ideas on structure, models, process funnels, productivity tools and how to recruit, hire and onboard the best people.  A few hands-on guides for real managers written by real managers with their fingers in the dirt.  

Connect with me any time at jack@derbymanagement.com and let's discuss your own 2026 planning!