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
Please Hire My Solution
Think of the last time you were looking for a job, or being interviewed for a position you really wanted. What did you do to present yourself most positively and get selected over those competing for the role? You probably: Did your homework, researching the company and the people you would be speaking to.Talked to other people in the company or who had worked for the company to get insight about the company, expectations, how they worked, what their challenges are.You’ve taken time to understand the job description, matching your capabilities to their needs, requirements, priorities.Prepared for the interviews, thinking […]
Sales Performance Improvement, Where To Start
I wrote, “Improving Sales Performance Without Changing How You Sell.” Readers started responding, “This is great, where do we start?” Here are some thoughts: “One size fits all:” Too often, we have a “one size fits all” approach to performance improvement. We focus on one thing, for example prospecting or pipeline coverage, and inflict this on the entire organization. Yet each person is different, as a result we may be doing the wrong thing with some, or may not be as impactful as we might be. For example, we may have high performers who have a great prospecting cadence and […]
The Power Of “Doing Things With…..”
Words are important, with the change of a single word, we often change our mindset, thinking about things differently, acting/behaving very differently. As sales people, we tend to talk about working with our customers. We use language like: “Doing something for them….,” Alternatively, “Doing things to them…..” As managers, we speak about our people in similar ways, we do something for or to them. Even though our intent may be to be helpful or to create value this wording focuses us on our own behaviors and actions, often forgetting the customer or sales person we are trying to engage. Stated […]
Insight Is Always Contextual!
HBR recently published an article, “Why ‘Tell Them Something They Don’t Know’ Is Bad Advice In B2B Sales.” The title is very “clickbaity,” upon reading it, the theme was very different, though perhaps not well explained. I don’t think anyone would argue, insight is important. It’s key to capturing the attention and imaginations of our prospects and customers. If I look at much of the prospecting email or calls I receive, clearly the marketing and sales enablement people have read the same books–they are trying to engage me with insight. But……. (You have to know there is a but) Too […]
Your Name Came Up…..
Yes, I’m whining about inept, manipulative prospecting. This might also be titled, “How stupid do you think your prospects are?” Several weeks ago, I get a LinkedIn Invitation: Dear David, Allow me to ask to be connected with you as I remember that your name and Partners In EXCELLENCE were mentioned during a conversation at the [Organization Name] conference, last December in Berlin. This connection is a first step to explore mutual interests. Best, [Name withheld to protect the clueless] Nice play to my ego and narcissism. I respond: Dear [Clueless], thanks for the note. I’m curious, what was the […]
Improving Sales Performance Without Changing “How You Sell”
Too often, as executives look to improve sales performance, they look to doing something new or different. It may be adopting a new methodology, new technologies or tools, changing your go to customer strategies. Any of these can improve sales performance, but the come with their costs. Since these represent major changes, the change management process and time involved in solidifying changes can be very long. Again, with any change, or doing something “new” or “different,” there are huge risks, and then there are the costs. Ironically, when we assess the performance of organizations, we find they aren’t as effective […]