Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
Blog
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
Figuring Out Networking
“Networking” is critical for all of us. Both in developing new professional and business relationships, and socially, just getting to know more and different people. We can learn so much new by networking and developing relationships with others. Networking has always been a bit of a challenge to me, since I’m naturally a bit shy and introverted. Yeah, I know that may surprise a lot of you, but it’s an unnatural act for me to get out and proactively build relationships. Since it’s so important, I continue to push myself and learn more about how to become more comfortable in […]
Doing The Math,,,,,
Sales (and marketing) is a numbers game! Well, kind of, but…… Let me backtrack. Too many organizations are driven by the numbers and “math” of sales and marketing. They think the way we drive performance is manage to the numbers and math equations. Let me give a very simple example: (Number of dials) x (Answer rate) = (Number of prospecting conversations) This is a fundamental equation we all use in prospecting. Let’s imagine the following, we have an answer rate of 5% for our dials. (This is probably a very ambitious conversion rate, but let’s go for it!) Doing the […]
“Can You Make It More Difficult For Me To Give You My Money?”
This post is purely self indulgent whining. But, unwittingly (I hope), too often we make it very difficult for our customers to buy. We seem to put every hurdle possible in front of them. Often, from the buyer’s point of view, it seems like we have to “earn the right” to give them our money. Here’s the story, analysis follows: I’m trying to buy a piece of property. It’s not an insignificant investment, but I’ve found a property that I’m interested in buying. I found the property on one of these generalized real estate sites. The realtor had listed it […]
“Show Me Your Calendar….”
Let me share a “secret” from my consulting/coaching practice. I ask to look at people’s calendars. Looking at someone’s calendar tells me a lot. I understand their priorities because I see where/how they are spending their time. I look for things that should be on their calendar that aren’t. This tells me what they might be missing. People are busy, their calendars tell me quite a bit about how likely they are to be effective or ineffective. Recently, I coached an executive whose calendar was filled with meetings. He schedule meetings in 30-45 minute segments for at least 12 hours […]
What Should We Expect Of Our Managers?
There’s a lot written about what managers should expect of their people. In sales, it’s usually summarized as “Make your numbers and stay out or trouble!” (With the first being, by far, the most important).) But in reality, it’s a two way street. Our people have (and should have) expectations of us. Sadly, too often, we’re oblivious too those expectations, or simply lack the empathy to care. And we see the result of this through skyrocketing voluntary attrition. The primary reason people leave a company is not comp, but because of their direct managers. Just as we evaluate our people […]
What’s Next?
We spend our day in meetings. We talk to prospects/customers. We meet with managers or our people. We meet with colleagues working deals with us. We meet with partners. In these meetings, sometimes we talk about important things. What the customer is trying to achieve, or what they might achieve. Goals, problems they may have. Changes they may want to make. Where they are in their problem solving and buying journeys. Internally, our meetings may be about a lot of things. Looking at our deal strategies, talking about how we might more effectively position ourselves. We have meetings on deal, […]