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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
Rethinking Account Based Selling
Recently, I was speaking to the leadership team of a sales organization. They were struggling with getting their people to develop and execute their account plans. They had invested a lot in training, content, and other programs to support the account based selling focus. But things weren’t changing. People were going through the motions of developing their account plans, they would review them with management, then they went back to doing their jobs in the way they had always done them. Sometimes, I think we make Account Planning and Account Based Selling more complicated than it needs to be. In […]
What Is “Value Creation?”
We know that we are supposed to create value with our customers through their buying process. But as I talk to sales people, most struggle with what that actually means. Sadly, too many sales people scratch their heads, saying, “Our product is cheaper than the alternatives…….” For those, more knowledgeable, most answers revolve around presenting the capabilities of a product/services and the value the customer will realize. They express value in terms of savings, cost reduction, improved profitability, and sometimes revenue growth. This is important, but it’s only realized after the customer has made a decision and implemented a solution. […]
Do You Believe In Your People, More Than They Believe In Themselves?
A colleague and I were reflecting on past managers/mentors we each had over our careers. We talked about the great ones and what set them apart. Eventually, we came upon the one thing common with each of our experiences. While different managers displayed this characteristic in different ways, the common thing was: For some reason, they believed in each of us, more than we believed in ourselves. For those who know me, you might think, “Dave you are confident, bordering on arrogant, at times. You have always seemed to believe in yourself and capabilities very strongly, how can someone else […]
Minimize Disagreement?
I was reading an article on “office politics.” Basically, the discussion was around maximizing collaboration by hiring “like minded” people. Implicitly, the argument focused on minimizing disagreements and differing points of view. Frankly, I think that’s terrible advice. Everything we know is the quality of what we do, the time to decision is increased with more diverse groups. I think several issues are at play. First, I don’t believe we understand how to effectively manage disagreement or conflict with an organization. We tend to take disagreement personally, thinking it’s a judgment on our value as human being, and some people […]
“Works Well With Others…..”
The other day, my mom embarrassed me a little. She had been going through some old boxes of papers she and my father had saved. Apparently, she had saved all my report cards from Kindergarten through High School. I was worried she was going to reprimand me about “buckling down and doing your homework….” She didn’t, I suspect she knew the time had long passed. As I was skimming through the report cards, in addition to the grades for all the courses, there were grades/comments about other areas. Things like, “completes assignments, participates in class, on-time, etc.” One stood out […]
The Challenge Of Insularity In Selling
Insular: in-su-lar 1. Characteristic of an isolated people especially: being, having or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint It seems insularity, a form of tribalism, is endemic to human beings. We don’t consciously seek to be insular, life just happens. Insularity in selling (and business), keeps us from being the best we can be. It restricts our ability to learn, grow, and perform at levels we had not imagined. How does this arise? Mostly, I think, it’s the press of everyday business. We have more on our plates than we can possibly do. We tend to put our noses to the […]