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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
Order, Seller, Or Buyer Centric?
Are you order, seller, or buyer centric? Sadly, too many are focused only on the order. In this world, the ideal thing is the customer has educated themselves, is knowledgeable, may have a few final questions and issues (price is always the key one), and the customer makes a buying decision. We do everything we can to position our products favorably, but the reality is the customer has probably made up their mind. The good news, is if they are talking to you, they are probably favoring you, and as long as you answer their remaining questions well, you will […]
Information Asymmetry, Turning The Tables
In the old days, when I used to hail a horse drawn carriage to take me to my customers in Wall Street, one of the most important advantages salespeople had was “information.” Salespeople were a primary source of learning for customers. Not just information about products and services, but what customers were doing, trends and issues that were happening in the industry. Some of my customers even used me to learn more about what was happening in their own organizations. They were so busy doing their jobs, I spent my days wandering the halls of my customer, meeting all sorts […]
Understanding Our Customers’ Businesses Better Than They Do?
I’ve always sought to understand my prospects’ and my customers’ business better than they do. I study target market sectors, understanding the dynamics in the markets, key issues the players face, key trends, potential opportunities, threats. I look at financial performance, key operational issues, disruptive strategies and so forth. When I target a prospect, I do a deep dive into learning as much about them as I can. If they are public, I analyze their financial and operational performance. I compare that performance to their competitors. I look at everything I can trying to learn as much as I could. […]
Objecting To Objections
Lately, I’ve been watching some eLearning programs on objection handling. It suddenly struck me, there’s a unique arrogance we sellers have about the concepts of objections. Too often, the underlying thinking seems to be that salespeople are the only people that encounter objections. That objections are something unique that customers inflict on us. We develop techniques to “handle” objections. Some “experts” promote techniques that seem somewhat manipulative. We seem to have a mindset that too many conversations with prospects and customers are “adversarial” relationships we must prepare for and “handle.” We’re obsessed with techniques and answers to objections. I Googled […]
Should We Be That Surprised By The Digital Buying Journey?
The “big news” in customer engagement is the customer digital buying journey. The shift to customers preferring the digital channels over dealing with sales people. Let’s be clear, a rep-free buying process, a preference for “self service,” is nothing new. Buyers have been doing this for decades, if not longer. It’s probably the dominant form of selling in consumer products. In consumer products, we know it is a low touch selling environment. We spend a lot of time in analyzing buying trends, merchandising. We advertise, promote, we package products so they visually “leap off the shelves.” Most of consumer purchases […]
Why Are We Satisfied With Such Poor Win Rates?
We struggle to hit our goals, make our numbers. Every year, we see decreases in % of sales people making their goals. At the same time, our solution to try to make our numbers is driving increases in volumes and velocity. As I start peeling back the numbers, reinforced by data from the research firms, I start seeing win rates at 20% or less! We’re winning fewer than 5 deals we qualify! When I challenge leaders about this, too often, they either: Don’t realize this is the actual performance; or shrug their shoulders, “It is what it is….,” alternatively, “We […]