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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 Questions And Questioning
Questions are probably one of the most critical tools for sales people and all leaders. They provide a powerful means of learning and growth. It’s through questions and questioning, we think about change, doing things differently. But sometimes, our questions are less effective or actually weaponize our intent. They don’t help us or the people we are posing the questions to learn and grow. Too often, we ask questions “with an implicit agenda.” The questions are intended to lead the responder down a a predetermined path to achieve the outcome the questioner desires. This questioning isn’t focused on learning or […]
The Pandemic, What Buyers Discovered
As sellers, the pandemic has forced us to rethink our work and how we engage our customers. We’ve seen customers cancel “high priority/committed projects,” and shift funding to “ad hoc” projects that were more important. This creates both opportunity and threats. BTW, this isn’t really a new insight, Hank Barnes has been doing very thoughtful research for years. Perhaps, the pandemic has accelerated this or created heightened visibility. One of the biggest adjustments we’ve made is to “virtual selling.” With the inability to travel or actually meet F2F, we had to find a new method for engaging our customers. There […]
“I Feel Like I’m Being A Pest!”
As I talk to sales people, I’m hearing this frustration being expressed more and more, “I feel like I’m being a pest…” Usually, it’s the result of people being required to complete a series of cadences–email, phone, text, whatever. They are measured by the touches, probably because research says we have to reach out at least 14 times. Often, these comments are about the very first prospecting outreach. I, also, hear this on qualified deals–particularly near the end of the quarter as sales people are pressured to book orders. It’s easy to see how they feel that way. Likewise, it’s […]
We’re All Flawed….
I was struck by a comment presidential historian Michael Beschloss made about General Colin Powell. “He was a flawed, great man…” What a wonderful commentary about a great leader! As I reflected, it seems to me this is a characteristic of great leaders–the ability to recognize they are flawed, but the commitment to overcome or correct these flaws. General Powell made some tragic errors of judgement, but what made him a great man was the owned up to them and worked incessantly to overcome or correct them. None of us is perfect, though too often too many believe we are. […]
The Customer Is NOT Always Right!
For decades, there’s the image of the “customer is always right.” Sales people have been deferential to the customer, not wanting to seem disagreeable or contentious. Somehow, there’s a feeling that if we disagree with the customer, we become “unlikeable,” scaring the customer away. We’ve invested millions in techniques for handling customer objections and disagreements. We talk about things like the “soft sell.” All of this misses key issues around any change initiative—there will be differing points of view, there will be disagreements, there will be misunderstanding. As sales people, we are helping the customer to change, we are helping […]
The Great Reinvention!
There’s a lot of talk about the Great Resignation. Partly, a result of the changes in work resulting from pandemic, partly things that have been building in people’s attitudes toward work since years before the pandemic. We’ve seen the precursors to the Great Resignation for some time. Sharply declining employee engagement and satisfaction, systemic reductions in performance, higher levels of voluntary attrition and sharply lowering tenures. As leaders, we’ve created much of the problem ourselves. There has been the great Commoditization Of Talent–treating people as widgets that can be easily replaced by another widget. Doing everything we can to mechanize […]