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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
Looking For What Isn’t Being Done Or Said
Just today, alone, I’ve been in several meetings. A couple were deal reviews, one was a major strategy/restructuring discussion. I learned more in these sessions by what they didn’t say and present than by what they did say. Listening/observing what isn’t being said or done is as important to understanding what is being done. Whether it is working with a customer moving them through their buying cycle; working with your people in deal, account, or other reviews; or major strategy/business planning sessions. When we focus only on what’s being said, we are focused on what people know and how they […]
Chaos, Complexity, Predictable Revenue, Making “Big Moves”
For the past decade, so many have sought to mechanize selling, creating predictable revenue. We developed methods and approaches, we’ve transactionalized the selling process, in spite of too many customers finding increased difficulty in navigating their buying processes. Even before the pandemic and collapse of the economy, how we sold became increasingly unpredictable. The percent of people making their goals continued to decline, organizations churned more rapidly, with tenure declining to 16.5 months. Sales leaders, increasingly, struggled to make sense of changes in their markets and to discover changes in the way the organized and executed their selling processes. At […]
“This Is Not A New Concept….”
On a recent post, someone commented, “This is not a new concept….” He was absolutely right, I had traced an origin of an idea back to the 1950-60’s, so it is an idea that is at least 60-70 years old. I suspect if one read some philosophers or scientists, the idea might be traced back centuries (to satisfy your curiosity, it was my post on the 5 Why’s.) The comment got me reflecting. We have a fascination with that which appears new and different, we are attracted to bright shiny objects. It’s a lot like the fashion industry, every year, […]
Are You Curious About Who Your Customer Is?
It seems odd to write a post for sales professionals (and unprofessionals), posing the question, “Are You Curious About Who Your Customer Is?” After all, we read endless drivel about the importance of relationships and people. But, sadly, too many sales people don’t really care about who their customers are. Sure, they look them up on LinkedIn, Facebook, or other social platforms, trying to find clues about how to have that first prospecting conversation. I get endless notes, trying to “engage me,” “I see you are in the manufacturing industry…” I’m not, though many of my clients are manufacturers. Or, […]
Forecasts Are About The Deals, Not The Number!
This is one of those topics I wish I could just put to bed and ignore–yet it keeps rearing it’s ugly head. We continue to get forecasting wrong, at least for complex B2B sales. We keep making the forecast about the number, for example, this quarter we are going to make $1B! Not long ago, I was analyzing the forecasting process for a very large organization. I looked at the forecast at the beginning of each quarter for the past 3 years. Then I looked at the results achieved at the end of the quarter. The management team was reasonably […]
Trick Or Treat?
I realize it’s 2 weeks past Halloween, but I am compelled to write this post. So much of the discussion about selling and marketing seems to focus on “the tricks” of engaging customers. For example, a friend recently called my attention to a discussion, about how much time a sales person should ask for a discussion. It turns out reply rates are 61% higher for 5-10 minutes, versus 20-30 minutes. This attracted over 100 comments (as of this writing), mostly saying, “fantastic data,” others offering small refinements, “6 minutes and 37 seconds is optimal.” OK I made that up, but […]