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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
Silo-Busting, We Have To Look Outside Our Own Functions/Silos!
The poet, John Donne, wrote, “No (wo)man is an island, entire of itself; every (wo)man is a piece of the continent.” Donne’s point is that none of us and what we do exists in isolation, we are part of a bigger thing–a family, a community, a nation. Alternatively a department/function, an organization, a company, a market ecosystem….. “Well dughhhh Dave, what’s your point?” The problem is, too many functions within our companies tend to act as “islands.” I suppose it’s human nature, we all tend to focus on our jobs, our goals, what we do. Over time, we lose focus […]
We Need To Stop Our Fixation On Buyer Journeys
Recently, I participated in a discussion on “the buyers journey.” In some ways, I suppose I should have been happy that we were at least focused on the buyer, normally we obsess about our products/solutions and how we inflict them on our customers. We do need to be focused on our customers and what they are trying to achieve. But is the “buying journey” the right target of our attention? Are we being as helpful as we can be, are we creating as much value with our buyers as possible with just a focus on the buying journey? As much […]
Structure Isn’t Strategy…..
In a recent conversation, a colleague made a very astute observation, “Structure isn’t strategy, structure it there to support the implementation/execution of strategy.” It was so simple and obvious when he stated it, but too often, I think we forget this as we drive performance in our organizations. We make our strategy about the “structures” we put in place–whether it’s the organizational structure, or the methodologies/tools/processes we use. They become the ends, in themselves, rather than the means. As things move forward, and we struggle to meet our goals, we focus on these structures, often loosing site of what we […]
Getting What You Get Or Getting What You Want?
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been sitting in a number of pipeline and deal reviews. While the companies are in very different businesses, different solutions, different sales processes, different sales force maturities; I’ve noticed some patterns: Deal quality is not where it need be. Average deal sizes seem to be eroding. Average sales cycles are increasing. Win rates are declining. People are struggling, but working very hard. They are closing deals, but things are very tough, and people are working very hard. Somehow, they aren’t hitting their goals. As we dive into their pipelines, I start seeing, the deals […]
Metric Fixation
We are consumed by metrics. We measure everything–Activity levels, call/meeting volumes, emails, customer “touches,” pipeline health/volume/velocity, forecast accuracy, quota performance, and on and on and on. Metrics are important. They are an indicator of our progress in achieving our goals, they help us understand if we are on target or drifting off target. Without these indicators, it’s difficult to be focused, effective, efficient. Without metrics it’s easy to lose our direction. “If you don’t know where you are going, any path will get you there.” But it’s important to understand what metrics can do and their limitations. Too often, the […]
Are We Enabling Or Crippling Our Sales People?
Enablement is one of those $100 words as you read anything in the sales and marketing literature. There’s lots of discussion around “Sales Enablement.” In fact there’s even the Sales Enablement Society, which actually is doing some good work in discussing hot issues in enablement . The concepts of enabling our sales people isn’t just limited to the sales enablement function. Marketing, product management, sales management, and others play key roles in enabling sales people. While all the work is well intended, I wonder if, too often, the unintended consequence of this work is actually “disabling” or crippling our sales […]