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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
Leadership, Patiently Impatient
I got a call from one of the most inspiring leaders I know: “Dave, I’m so frustrated, I have a vision for what we could be doing to grow the business, I think we can achieve so much more than we are–we are making our numbers. But we can do so much more, I can’t get people to move forward!” What this leader faced is, probably, the root challenge of all leaders. Leaders tend to have a great vision, sometimes an inspiring vision, and the challenge is, “How do we get everyone in the organization share that vision with the […]
FUD Meets FOMO
We and our customers live in worlds of paradox, uncertainty, confusion, complexity, overwhelm, overload, and constant change. Organizationally and individually, we are afraid of missing something—FOMO. We constantly move from one thing to another and then to the next. We see the latest technique, strategy du jour, technology, competitor and want to do the same thing. We watch competitors and others, worried they may be onto something, and that we might miss an opportunity. And they are doing the same with us. At the same time, we are plagued by Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt – FUD. We worry about making mistakes, […]
On Innovation
Innovation is important. We all know there is a limit to doing the same old things, over and over. Even though we may do them in greater volume or greater velocity, over time they become…….well old…..and not very effective. So we struggle to innovate. We think of the great new revolutionary or disruptive idea. We reflect on people like Thomas Edison and his inventions (like the light bulb), or the invention of the internal combustion engine, or Al Gore inventing the internet (sorry, I couldn’t resist). We tend to think of “innovation” as radically new and disruptive. These type of […]
“I’m Drowning In Reviews!”
Recently, I was speaking to a number of sales execs. We were talking about how to improve the performance of their teams. One manager in frustration said: “I’m drowning in reviews, it seems I spend all my time in deal, account, pipeline, forecast, prospecting, and other reviews. And I’m falling further behind, I feel I have to review every deal, every account, everything—I can’t possibly do it! I feel so out of control!” This broke the dam in the conversation with this management team, all jumped in stating that they felt out of control, they didn’t know what was going […]
It Is ALWAYS About Execution
I’ve been writing a lot about our Sales Execution Framework and a “Back To Basics” approach to sales management and selling. These articles have generated some interesting calls and reactions. A lot of the discussion has been around sales training programs, new approaches, or new tools that companies have implemented–or tried to implement. I had a tough conversation with the EVP of Sales of a mid sized company. He was angry and declared he would never invest in sales training again. He said, “Over the past several years, we’ve invested $100’s of thousands in training our people on new sales […]
Bits And Pieces, September 14, 2019
It’s been a while since I’ve published one of these. The purpose of the “Bits and Pieces series is to point you to outstanding books, events, podcasts, and other resources. I won’t do reviews of the materials, at most a comment. Please trust that if I put it on this list, I think the work is outstanding and worth your time. The UnAmerican Dream, Carlos Hidalgo. This is a stunning book on Carlo’s personal journey to find sanity in his life and to focus on those things that are most important and drive meaning in one’s life. Carlos is a […]