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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
“I’m Trying To Think, But Nothing Happens…..”
Too often, as I look at my feeds, or as I discuss many well intended enablement/training programs, or as I look at the technologies available to “help” our sellers, I’m reminded of the old Three Stooges scene where Curly is struggling, saying, “I’m trying to think but nothing happens!” While we genuinely seek to help our sellers improve their performance, there seem to be unintended consequences to what we are doing. And the data shows this, declining results across virtually every metric we see. The way we make up for the gaps is with a volume/velocity approach. “If what we […]
“They Responded To Our Outreach!!”
As you know, I participate in 100s of pipeline and deal reviews every year. One of my standard queries focuses on pipeline quality. It seems like such a simple/obvious question, but you’d be amazed at the amount of “hand waving” and confused responses I get. “How do you know this is a real deal? How do you know this is qualified?” You can guess a lot of the responses: “They seem to be interested in our solutions…. We’ve been having great conversations…. They responded to our outreach…..” I ask, “I get that, how do you know they are ready to […]
What About Quality?
As I peruse my feeds with insights from guru’s, I see all sorts of advice about increasing our outreach. Leveraging tools, ChatGPT, social channels. My various inboxes are filled with with offers for “more.” I am offered lists of thousands of prospects. We are inundated with data showing declining response rates, the solution to these is always “more.” What took 400-500 outreaches a few years ago, takes 1200-1500 today, and next year probably will be over 2500. As I sit in pipeline reviews, almost universally, the coaching is, “You need more,” followed by demands to 3X, 4X, 9X their pipelines. […]
What Are You Looking For In A Candidate?
Clients and colleagues frequently ask my opinion of people they are considering hiring. It’s often a request, “Dave, what do you think of each of these candidates? Who would you hire?” And the requests are accompanied with resumes, each extolling the fantastic accomplishments the candidate has achieved through their career. When asked this, I always reply, “What are you looking for?” The responses are always the same, “I want a high performer for this role…….” The roles vary, I’m asked my opinion on CRO Candidates, VPs, managers, Account Managers, and others. While I never respond with my knee jerk reaction, […]
“What Would You Do For Free, All Day Long?”
This question was posed in an email I received recently. It struck me, for a number of reasons. People who know me well, sometimes ask, “Dave, why do your work so hard! You certainly don’t need the money, but you continue to be one of the busiest people I know. What causes you to keep it up? Why don’t you take more time off?” The response has been the same over all the years people have asked that question. It’s always been this, “I get up every morning and do my hobby. I have the privilege of working with some […]
Are Your Managers “A Players?”
This is a bit of a tough post for many readers who are leaders. It forces them to reflect on your own capabilities and those of the management teams they lead. A key question, “When reflecting on your own capabilities, and those of the managers on your team, are you ‘A Players?’” Be honest with yourself, if you aren’t you can develop, more later. Why is this such an important question? The answer is pretty simple, in maximizing the performance of their teams, leaders must be top performers, themselves. If they aren’t, then their ability to drive the highest levels […]