Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
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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
Are LLMs “Dumbing Us Down?”
I leverage a variety of AI tools, predominantly LLMs, constantly throughout the day. As I look at how I use the tools and how many in selling and business leadership use these same tools, I’m starting to see sharp contrasts with the way too many others are using them. There are many using these tools as “thought partners.” They use the tools to evaluate/debate strategies, model different competitive scenarios, challenge assumptions they may be making about certain opportunities. As I look at their prompts, I see fascinating questions, challenges, and a give and take. And they use these exchanges, less […]
“As Long As The Outcome Is Achieved…..”
A thoughtful LinkedIn Post (I know, I know, it’s a rarity), addressed the tendency of managers to “over control” the way sellers work. Too often, we see rigid processes and managers demanding compliance, and constant/dysfunctional micromanagement. Yet every situation is different, in the best sellers agilely adapt what they do to achieve the goals. But a number of commenters thought, “As long as the outcome is achieve, who cares about how you do it?” The focus was purely on the outcome. In essence, this argument is “The end justifies the means…..” Setting aside any ethical other considerations, there are huge […]
Things That Haven’t Changed…..
We live in a world of constant disruption and change. It can be distracting as we struggle to understand and respond, or as we try to figure out how to leverage the disruption to better achieve our goals. We become focused on the change, the technologies, the new approaches/ideas, tools. We tend to be attracted to “bright shiny objects,” or the miracle cures, or the “secrets to my success.” And this is natural and, sometimes, helpful. At the same time, we tend to forget, there are things that remain constant through time. Things that fundamentally don’t change. When we forget […]
Questions/Answers, Engaging Customers In Verbal Ping-Pong
I listen to a lot of sales calls. Recordings of client sellers in calls/meetings. Sometimes webcasts where someone is talking about call strategies and going through role plays. This week, it was on creating urgency with questions. So much of it begins to look like a game of pint pong. Question….Answer Ask…Respond Query….Reply Inquire…Response Probe….Answer (though I seldom see this level of questioning) Ask…Explain Back…Forth Ping…Pong As I watch these discussions, I start to feel my head turning slightly to the questioner, then to the responder, then back to the questioner, then back…… Kind of like a ping pong game […]
What About Problem Market Fit?
Every founder, business strategist, revenue focused executives, product management executives obsesses on Product Market Fit (PMF). It’s natural to think this way. “This is what we make, who might want to buy what we make? Who will be the best buyers of what we make?” And we develop our GTM strategies: “Find as many people who want to/need to buy our product as possible, and as quickly as possible!” And if we look at that strategy, we tend to think of the product placement as the destination or goal–it’s our goal and it’s our customers’ goal, “find, select and buy […]
Creating Customers For Life…..
No, this isn’t a post on the importance of retention/renewal/expansion, though the underlying principles can impact retention/renewal/expansion. It’s a very different focus on our customers, what they mean to us and what we mean to them. This came up in a discussion, someone was asking about Partners In EXCELLENCE, our GTM process, and our strategies. I mentioned, offhandedly, that we have a principle underlying everything we do. I said, “We are driven by creating customers for life!” What does this mean? First, when we create customers for life, we have a couple of focus area: The enterprises and companies we […]