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Making A Difference – Thoughts, Observations and Opinions
This is Dave Brock’s Blog.
It offers my views on a variety of business, sales, marketing, and leadership topic. My goal is to make a difference for you, the reader, in both your professional and personal lives.
Latest Posts
AI Can Do A Lot, But Do We Want It To Do All It Can Do?
My friend, Charlie Green, and I exchange ideas on new AI tools. This weekend, he shared a tool that summarizes all the newsletters he subscribes to. Both he and I tend to subscribe to a lot of things. Inevitably, it gets overwhelming. I can’t read everything I subscribe to. Tools like the one Charlie referenced help us deal with that overwhelm. Everyday, I get inundated with the lists of all the things that AI can do. Recently a guru posted a list of current use cases for AI. To be fair, he didn’t claim it to be all inclusive, but […]
I Made A Mistake…
Four of the most powerful but least used words in business or human relationships are, “I made a mistake.” There are another three powerful words, “I was wrong.” They are tough words to say, but think of the impact they have in moving things forward, in building relationships/trust. In everything we do in selling (and business) there is always the possibility of making a mistake. Perhaps we ask our customers the wrong questions, failing to discover their real business drivers. Perhaps we have developed a strategy we thought would win, but later realize we were doing the wrong things. Perhaps […]
It’s About Time!
It’s a recurring theme, rather crisis. In the past, I’ve tended to dismiss this as an issue. There have been so many outstanding books. There are endless tools/technologies to help us. Endless hints/tips, expert advice. I didn’t realize how constant this challenge is. But the issue persists! It’s an issue with everyone, from individual contributors to top leaders. It crosses all performance categories–low performers are impacted by this, but may not care that much. High performers struggle with this, as to all others. And the problem seems to be getting worse. It’s about time! That’s it, it’s about how we […]
My Shame And Anger!
Typically, I take controversial positions on GTM, selling, leadership and other business issues. I have cautiously avoided writing about anything that could be construed as “political.” I can no longer stand by silently. It would be irresponsible, I have to speak out. Frankly, I don’t care about the consequences, because speaking out, and encouraging others to do the same (regardless of views) has never been more important. It seems everyday, sometimes every hour, we see continued acts, by the leaders of our government, that are unimaginable. Some will be deemed illegal, but they will fight, possibly ignoring. Some are irrational, […]
“We Need Training…..”
The email came in, “We need training. We’ve seen your programs before, can you talk to us about a training program?” I quickly arranged a discussion, “What kind of training do you need?” “We need sales training,” came the response. “What kind of sales training do you need?” I ask. “Sales training, our people aren’t performing the way we expect,” came the response. “Where are they struggling? What is the performance shortfall?” I ask. “They are meeting their quotas and our growth goals,” came the response. “Why aren’t they meeting those goals? Are they struggling in specific areas?” I ask. […]
“We’re Doing Everything Right, But Nothing’s Working!”
I was struck by this sentence in a LI post today, “We are doing everything right, but nothing’s working!” I see variants of this every day: Scratching my head at these and similar statements, I wonder, “If you are doing everything right, then it should be working! That’s how designing and executing your GTM/selling strategies work! If it isn’t producing the desired outcome, then there is something flawed in the design or in what you are doing!” I’m constantly befuddled by the acceptance of YoY slips in revenue performance, slips in % of people making quota, slips in win rates […]