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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
Thinking About “Conversational Intelligence”
Conversational intelligence is increasingly a hot topic, yet too often, it seems it’s more of an oxymoron. Just to be clear, for the purposes of this post, I’m talking about the application of AI/ML tools to analyze sales conversations, providing guidance to improve the quality of those conversations. We are in the early days of using conversational intelligence tools and understanding how to leverage them. Sadly, I think many of the suppliers of these tools are the one’s that most misunderstand the power and potential of these tools. As a result, they tend to provide guidance that’s not useful. We […]
Stop Wasting Money
In these difficult times, there is the very real need to reduce discretionary spending as much as possible. Every dollar we save in discretionary spending can be diverted to saving jobs. I’ve discovered a solution–a huge source of discretionary spending, that is virtually wasted. If we stop spending in this area, millions can be saved and much of that can be diverted to retaining jobs. Here’s the solution. Look at your technology stack for sales and marketing. Cancel your contracts for virtually 100% of the tools you are paying for. Divert that money into spending that has a higher impact. […]
Working From Home
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had friends, colleagues, clients calling and to talk about the trials and tribulations of working from home. We’ve shared funny stories, frustrations, and swapped hints and tricks. Some people have been asking me for hints/tricks about working from home, knowing that I have had a home office for the past 20+ years. I hardly feel qualified, since typically on Monday mornings I jump on an airplane to go to a client location. Prior to the “Shelter In Place” rules in California (supplemented by common sense and good judgment), I normally work from my […]
What’s Next, Moving Forward
We are still in the midst of the global health and economic crisis, yet many of the conversations I’m hearing are focused on “what’s next.” Some people talk refer to what’s next as, “when things get back to normal.” Implicitly thinking what we are going through is a momentary interruption, and, at some point, we are back to doing business and interacting socially in the same ways we were doing as little as a few months ago. It’s not unusual to think about, “when things get back to normal.” As we look at past history, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes (in […]
Your Value Proposition Must Be More Valuable Now!
Creating value with our customers has never been more important than it is now. Our customers face issues they have, probably, never had to deal with in the past. The safety of their people, restrictions on how they operate, profound shifts in their markets and with their customers, possible supply chain management issues, and the list goes on. Some customers are in areas critical to our current health and economic crises, they are struggling to respond to critical needs from their customers. Some are struggling to be important to their customers. Some are restricted in their ability to do business, […]
“How Can I Help?”
One of my sources for blog topics is my friend, Brent Adamson. The other evening, Brent and I were trying to solve the problems of the sales world. I actually think he was trying to escape the “shelter in place” lifestyle we have adopted. One of his daughters was downstairs exercising, the rest of the family was some place else in the house. He posed the question, “What’s the worst question you can ask a customer?” After brainstorming a few alternatives, he suggested, “How can I help?” Think about the emails you are getting, calls you are getting, or perhaps […]