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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
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 […]
Speaking About PIPs……..
Yeah, yeah, I know you are thinking, “What a downer Dave! Can’t you write about something more inspiring like plummeting win rates….?” I don’t know if it’s the time of year, you know a kind of “out with the bad” mindset, or a reflection of something else, but I’ve been involved in a number of discussion about PIPs—Performance Improvement Plans. Virtually all of us have been exposed to these in some way. We’ve been the subject of PIPs, we’ve inflicted them on our people, or we’ve commiserated with colleagues going through the process. And 99% of the PIP processes I’ve […]
“The 4 Hour Work Week!”
No, I’m not doing a review of Tim Ferris’ “The 4 Hour Work Week,” 17 years after it’s original publication. But if you haven’t read it, it’s a fascinating read. I’m imagining the end game of all the productivity and efficiency hacks I see filling my feeds. My feeds are filled with expert advice about how we become much more efficient, how we get more done in the same amount of time or less. For years, there have been hints, tips, technologies. How we can launch 1000s of “hyper personalized emails” in 15 minutes or less. How we leverage dialers […]
We Talk About Problems Differently Than Our Customers Talk About Them
I had a fascinating conversation today. It was with an entrepreneur doing fascinating things in leveraging AI, data, analytics to help his customers. He had a number customers, including some thought leaders and opinion shapers in his markets. As we were discussing the problem he solved, he spoke in terms of data quality, currency, data analytics, reporting. It was clear that what he did had a very high impact on his customers. As we spoke, I asked, “Is the way your customers talk about the problem the same way you talk about it? Do they describe it in terms of […]
It’s Not Your Job To Solve The Problems!
I grew in my career establishing myself as a “Problem Solver.” Finding and fixing problems was like a scientific challenge, which matched my training as a theoretical physicist. I proactively sought problems and challenges and worked to solve them. At first it was as a seller working with my customers. I’d wander the halls of Citicorp and Chase Manhattan bank, talking to people, looking for problems. A better way to do credit card approvals and processing, a better way to do wire transfers and foreign exchange. I made my quotas by finding problems and presenting solutions to my customers Then […]
A Seller’s Dream, “Customers Don’t Want To See Sellers!”
We’ve all seen the data. Customer would prefer a rep-free buying experience! And when they do have to involve sellers, they want to minimize seller engagement, often not engaging sellers until the final 20% of their buying process. While there as been a certain amount of hand wringing and “how to we fix this” in the selling community, and with me and many of my peers, I can imagine the majority of sellers quietly cheering!!! “This is fantastic! It makes our jobs so much easier, the customer does most of the hard work! All we have to do is focus […]