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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
Sales Training And The “Forgetting Curve”
Every year, billions are spent in sales training. Yet all the data shows over 80% of what is taught is forgotten within 90 days. As a result, what really is happening is that every year we are throwing away billions on sales training. But it’s worse than that. The billions spent represents spending in buying, developing, and delivering training. It doesn’t even include the time/opportunity cost of the people, upon whom we inflict sales training. What do we do about it? First, let me provide a quick tutorial on the “forgetting curve.” One of my favorite blog sites is the […]
Start/Stop/Pivot/Restart Sales Strategies
Sales, as with most things, is something that demands regularity in execution. By that, I mean, there are many things a sales person or manager has to do to perform. Some of the obvious: Prospecting, working deals, planning calls, developing proposals, developing territory/account plans, pipeline management/forecasting, time management, learning/training, one on one’s with managers (hopefully for coaching), and yes, even administrivia. All of these are components of the “whole job.” We have to do all these things, all the time. If we skip one, for example, prospecting, it eventually impacts all other areas. Skipping prospecting means eventually our pipelines run […]
Sales Talent Is A Problem, Is It Worth Solving?
I just read a provocative post. Sales Talent Is A Problem, Is it Worth Solving, by the folks at CSO Insights. It’s an interesting view, in the spirit of “Yes, and…..” I’d like to add to the discussion. I suppose answers to the question depend on your mindset. A closed mindset would probably say, “No!” The article presents a few points of view that reinforce that. People with closed mindsets would tend to address things from an internal orientation. How do we structure the sales organization to be most efficient? How do we reduce the variability in sales people and […]
Letting Form Triumph Over Substance
One of my favorite authors/thinkers is John Gardner. About 35 years ago, a mentor introduced me to his work. One of his most profound books is entitled Excellence, Can We Be Equal An Excellent Too. I reread the book at least once a year. There is one phrase in the book that I’m obsessed with, “Do not let form triumph over substance.“ Too often, I see sales people, sales managers going through the motions. They are doing the things they think sales people or sales managers should be doing, without understanding the purpose, why they are doing these things, why […]
Stupid Works In Sales
I’ve been writing a number of pieces looking at the future of the sales profession. I’d be remiss not to include a discussion of stupidity in selling. Stupid works, and as long as stupid works, we will continue to see organizations invest in doing things stupidly. Stupid behavior exists everywhere, and selling is no more immune to stupidity than every other sector. People respond to stupid emails. After all, people purporting to be Nigerian Princes are making money. There will always be some people that will respond to scams. And enough respond that the people exploiting these tactics to make […]
Why I’m So Optimistic About The Future Of Selling
About 3-4 years ago, I was participating in a discussion, at the time hosted by CEB, now Gartner. It was a group of very bright thinkers/practitioners in sales and marketing. We were discussing the future of sales and marketing–things we saw happening, things we believed needed to change. It was a fascinating discussion, but I struggled participating in it. At the end, Brent Adamson pulled me to the side asking, “Dave, you seem to have a pretty dark outlook about selling, what’s up?” At the time, I had to agree with Brent’s assessment. But, I had no response, in fact […]