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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
Relationships Matter–But What Does That Mean?
Andy Paul wrote a terrific piece on relationships (visit TheSalesHouse to get some of his thinking). There is a lot of discussion, pro and con, about the importance of relationships–but little of it drives any clarity about what a relationship is, and why it matters. There are the “old timers,” who view relationships as key, but define relationships as friendship. Their approach is to exploit the “relationship,” but not the value they create in helping the customer achieve their goals. They cite the years of “relationship,” the lunches, golf games, birthday cards to kids, etc. They trade on this friendship, […]
Change–Never More Than Three!
We all know how difficult it is to change. Whether it’s our own personal habits/behaviors, those of our teams, our organization/company, or getting our customers to change. There endless pithy quotes both about the importance of change and the challenges of change. There are 1000’s or articles (add one more to the stack) about how to drive change. I’m not sure I have the magic solution to change. How to make it less painful (I’m not sure we really want to make it less painful)? How to make it easier, how to get people to accept it. Perhaps the only […]
Why Do People Buy?
I can already picture half the readers. Raising their eyebrows, perhaps rolling their eyes, thinking, “Well Dave, the answer is obvious……..” The obvious answer is to address needs, perhaps to solve a problem. Once that is acknowledged, the more sophisticated immediately leap to understanding the buyer’s journey. Too many focus only on the “seller’s journey.” hoping the buyer is interested in riding along. Inevitably our focus is on buying and selling, but we are still not aligned with the customer and their journey. Yet the customer is on a different journey. Of course they are addressing a need. That could […]
Are You Removing Roadblocks For Your People?
I was sitting in a series of reviews. Sales people were walking through their pipelines, key deals and other issues. The team was struggling to make their numbers. Of course, there were a number of execution issues, with each sales person, there were challenges they had created for themselves. Chasing poorly qualified deals, not executing the strongest deal strategies, poor planning…… Their manager coached people on various areas, all focused on improving their abilities to execute. As one would expect, each person needed different coaching. But through the reviews, there two or three consistent themes that arose. There were some […]
Who Is Your Customer?
One of the single most important concepts in marketing and sales is the “Ideal Customer.” Yet it’s an area too few focus on. When I pose the question, “Who’s your ideal customer,” it’s usually met with an eye roll and sigh. It’s usually answered with: “It’s the organizations that buy our products…..” “It’s the enterprise….” “It’s a C-level executive…” “Every company can use our product…” “We sell to [insert the name of an industry or market segment]……” The reality is, not everyone can or should be our customer. Defining our ideal customer enables us to focus on those that are […]
There Are No “Shortcuts”
One would think the notions of miracle cures and short cuts to success would have been dispelled decades ago. It seems there is always some huckster promising “miracle cures,” “Do these 5 things and customers will immediately buy—I’ll tell you the secrets to success for $99.95!” “Say these 5 words to get customers to respond……” “It only takes 4 discovery questions to maximize your success in engaging customers….” “Buy this tool to drive response rates up by 500%…..” Often, accompanying these enticing miracle cures is a picture of some one sitting in a private jet, driving their fancy car, dining […]