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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
The Deck Was Never The Point!
I was struck by a LinkedIn post with the opening line: “Microsoft just made QBR prep obsolete. And CSMs everywhere should be celebrating.” The rest of the article talked about how Microsoft has integrated AI into it’s products, eliminating all the work needed to prepare the charts for a QBR. And there is post after post, outlining the same principles. We no longer have to do pre-call research and prep, there are AI tools that do all of it for us, presenting us the call plan a few minutes before we make the call. Or after the call, we no […]
How You Sell To Me Shows How You Will Sell For Me…
As I clean out my inbox, texts, social messages, I often ask myself the question, “Do they actually ever read what they are sending me? Do they care about how they are representing themselves? Are they establishing the impression they want?” Your inboxes probably look the same as mine. You are inundated with people who have perfected outreach and engagement. Endless offers of, “we can find more leads, we can build your LinkedIn presence, we can bring you more opportunities, we can be your outsourced prospecting……” You probably have them memorized. To them personalization is a name, the company name—and […]
The Secret To Your Competitive Advantage……
A colleague shared an observation from a CRO. The CRO had discovered the secret to his team’s competitive advantage. Drum roll…….. The secret to your competitive advantage has nothing to do with your products, your pricing, even your company and it’s reputation. The secret to your competitive advantage is “Mediocrity!” Not yours, but your competitors! We live in a world of increasing sameness, at least in selling and our GTM strategies. Everyone does the same things in the same way. We use the same playbooks. We have the same sequences, leveraging the same tools. We measure the same KPIs. We […]
Fetishizing “AI Native”
In certain circles there seems to be a lot of preening around the concept of “AI Native.” When I start asking what that means, it’s difficult to get a definition. For some, it’s start-up companies bringing products to the market that are wholly AI based. And like many startup, there is a lot of bragging about double/triple digit growth, enormous market caps. (Hmmm, I’ve seen this movie before….) Some of these things focus on everything being done within the AI itself, but with a few exceptions, like art and video, these systems depend on outside data and information to do […]
What Would You Do If You Weren’t Told What To Do?
Let me run a thought experiment: “What would you do if your weren’t told what to do?” You know the goals you must achieve, let’s say quota-based, or similar revenue based attainment goals. If you are in a non-selling role, think about project goals/deadlines or other important goals. You have all sorts of resources to help you achieve them, tools, technologies, processes, programs, and so many more. But your job is to figure out what to do to achieve your goals. How would you spend your week? How would you get the work you needed to get done, done? What […]
Leaders Develop Others…
Leadership is not about personal heroics or individual brilliance. Unfortunately, our ideas of leaders are often influenced by heroics or people who seize the spotlight. Or our understanding of leadership is tied to a title or position of authority. Real leadership has nothing to do with any of these things. Leadership is about stimulating the very best from everyone. Recognizing the potential in each person and helping draw it out. Whether it’s coaching growth or connecting them with other people with each other or resources to achieve more than they thought possible. Leaders align others around a shared vision of […]