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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
What If Sales Enablement Is A “Rotational Assignment?”
I always hate starting a post with a pile of disclaimers. In some of my recent posts, I seem to be bashing sales enablement. I don’t mean to be doing that. Sales enablement is a vital function in organizations, it has a hugely important mission that can only be fulfilled with talented professionals. Many of our best clients and my closest friends are sales enablement professionals (And I hope they remain so after reading this post.) However, I often wonder if we might increase the impact of sales enablement by making it a “temp job” or “rotational assignment.” What if […]
Sales Enablement, “Build It And They Will Come….”
Sales enablement is a “hot” issue in driving sales effectiveness/performance. Hundreds of millions are being invested in “enabling sales people.” Whether it’s new software tools, programs, content, training, processes, dedicated sales enablement professionals and executives are creating and delivering an endless array of things to “help” sales people. Every sales enablement professional I meet is very dedicated and well intended. But often, it seems too many have lost sight of the goal–it;s helping our sales people sell more. Too often, it seems these professionals get caught up in their own activities, which become ends in themselves, but may not be […]
You Can Lead A Sales Person To Water, But You Can’t Make Him Think!
So much of the conversation we see in selling is on enabling the sales person (not just limited to the sales enablement function). Millions/Billions are invested in sales tools, training, content, and programs. We structure organizations “to optimize” performance, creating specialist roles so sales people don’t have to manage the whole process. We provide programs, scripts, systems/tools, to help the sales person in engaging prospects and customers. In some sense, it seems we are trying to handhold sales people through every conversation, every step of the process, every variation they may encounter. In spite of all these investments, sales performance […]
What We Do Is Not Complicated–Yet We Have A Tendency To Complicate It.
My friend, Andy Paul wrote a brilliant newsletter piece this weekend, entitled What We Do Is Not Complicated. His newsletter struck a chord. What we do isn’t complicated–yet somehow we tend to make it so–for ourselves, perhaps more importantly, for our customers. At it’s core, selling is simply about: Find a customer that has a problem they want to solve, that we are the best in the world at solving. Help the customer understand how to best solve their problem, achieving the outcomes they want, demonstrating the superior value you create with them. Assure they achieve the desired outcomes. Start […]
The Importance Of Setbacks
Too often, we get caught up in the rush of everyday life. The press of everyday activity, the constant intrusion and interruptions drive what we do. These become standard, we go on autopilot–even as a coping mechanism. Most important we stop paying attention, we stop being present. This doesn’t mean we aren’t accomplishing things. The most successful tend to build routines based on what works, and we repeat them over and over, until we become un-conscious (read not present) in our execution. It’s at these points be become most vulnerable, but we may be unconscious to the signals. Inevitably, things […]
Our Need To Sell Is Irrelevant To The Customer
As sales people, we are driven by our need to sell. Whether it’s the drive to win, attainment, commissions/earnings, or pressure from our managers, we have a high need to sell. Unfortunately, our need to sell is absolutely meaningless to customers. In fact, the more strongly we execute on that need, the more we alienate our customers. Regular readers know I’m prone to analogies. The analogy here is that our need to sell can be likened to pushing a rope uphill. The more we push, the less progress we make–ultimately, we have a tangled mess. But if someone’s at the […]