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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
On Measures, Metrics, KPIs
In selling (marketing, sales, customer experience) and business, in general, data, measures, metrics, and KPIs are important, and, sometimes, helpful. It’s become fashionable to quote, Goodhart’s Law, which states, “When a measure becomes a target, it seems to become a good measure.” Well……, Yes……, but what does that mean? When you think about it, Goodhart’s statement is less about measures and more about human behavior. Let’s start at the beginning. A measure is simply that. It’s a number or indicator of some sort. For example, a measure may be “I made 50 calls…” or “I sent 100 emails …..” or […]
The Tyranny Of “More!”
Sellers tend to be selfish and greedy. They keep asking for “More!” The need for more pretty much permeates everything sellers and managers do. More pretty much runs the gamut of topics—more leads, more opportunities, more scripts, more content, more support, more tools, more deals, more pipeline, more calls, more meetings, more proposals, more discounts. more product to sell, more territory, more pipeline, more commission, more people, more funding, more, more, more…. And the response to these request is, generally, to provide more. Though more seldom equates to better, and, in my experience, is never the right starting point for […]
Selling And Great Cooking
The other day, I read a great post from David Masover, comparing sales with great cooking. It’s really an outstanding analogy and way to think about selling. I’ve been fortunate to hang around some of the best professional chefs. My wife, after a career in technology sales, decided to pursue her dream. She attended the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to learn–even though she was already an outstanding cook. It was a rigorous 3 year program. After graduating, she did a number of things–cooking for private dinners, some catering, some events. Eventually, she fell into teaching. She wanted to help […]
How Things Get Done (Or Not)
Every organization I work with has everything a sales organization should have in place. We go down laundry lists all the programs, tools, processes that are in place: CRM and the classic “sales stack?” Check, “we’re spending $1000’s per person for these.” Social selling? Check, every sales person has access to Sales Navigator. Sales process? Check, and it’s aligned with the buyer’s journey. Onboarding? Check, we train all our new people. Performance management process? Of course, we have quotas, other metrics and a strong comp plan. Demand gen/prospecting? We have SDRs and marketing provides us leads. Bid management process? Check. […]
The Great Customer Resignation
I recently read an article about the coming Great Customer Resignation. The title was actually more interesting than the content of the article, but if you want to read it, there’s a link at the end of this post. Over the past year or so, we are constantly reminded about the Great Resignation. Many attribute this to experiences through the pandemic, whether it’s WFH or WFA, or rethinking of individual priorities about work and life. People, by the millions, are changing jobs. Talent retention and acquisition has been one of the key issues facing everyone from my local contractor to […]
Innovation And Copying
Too often, we think we are innovating, when all we are doing is copying. We look at our competitors, seeing what drives their success and we copy them. We try to do the very same things that makes them successful. Whether it’s the same tools, programs, methods, content, we think we innovate by copying. Or we may look at other successful organizations, assessing what they do, copying it with the hope of being as successful or better than they are. And it virtually never works! While it works for them, it seldom works for us–and those few times it does, […]