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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
“Servant Salespersonship”
Some of the more cynical (or perhaps worn down) of you will misread the title, thinking, “Dave, we’re already slaves to our jobs, managers, companies. What are you doing?” I’m really thinking about applying the principles and concepts of “Servant Leadership” to sales and our relationships with customers. Servant leadership concepts can be traced back millennia to philosophies in from Lao-Tzu, the Indian treatise, Arhashastra, the Bible, many of the Stoics, and others. The modern incarnation of these principles were first popularized by Robert Greenleaf in “The Servant As A Leader,” published in 1970. Lots has been written about these […]
Predictions For 2017!
Foreword: Yes, you read the title right. I originally wrote this on December 30, 2016. I never published it. Somehow it seemed a little futile. As I started thinking about this topic for 2018, I looked at this article. As I had guessed one year ago, not much has changed. The state of sales and marketing hasn’t changed. The topics that were “hot” a year ago, or more, are the same topics we are struggling with now, and will be the topics we will struggle with in the coming years. Blog post for December 31, 2016: It’s that time […]
Plateauing
As we often do, at this time of year, we take stock of where we are in our business and personal lives. We look at what we’ve accomplished in the past year, and our goals for the coming year. Some of us develop “resolutions.” (I don’t.) I’ve been reflecting a lot on my personal performance and growth. While, from pure business outlook, things couldn’t be better. We are involved in truly exciting projects with our clients, making an impact on their businesses and lives. Part of me feels as though we, or at least I have plateaued. Plateauing, I think […]
Sales, Art, Science, Craft?
The article I wrote, Moving From Selling As An Art To Selling As A Science, has stirred up a lot of reaction in the various venues in which it’s appeared. There have been various comments, mostly supportive. Many suggest, I think correctly, that sales is a blend of art and science. Robert Racine added the great insight that professional selling is a blend of art, craft, and science. However, there continues to be a lot of flawed reasoning in these discussions. (Mostly outside the direct comments to the referenced post.) Many argue the science side, but are focused on the […]
Driving Change
We all struggle with change. Most of the time it’s impatience with those around us who aren’t changing. it may be our people, our customers, others in our organization. They struggle with change, they resist it, they get confused. Change is always tough, it threatens us, it puts us in unfamiliar situations. We may be uncomfortable, we may not know what to do or how to do it. We want to revert to what we know, we take comfort in the familiar–even though we know these things may be holding us back. Too often we forget that at the root […]
Are Skills More Important Than Experience?
I was reading an article from yet another guru—my apologies, I’m really getting tired of guru’s—with the premise, Skills are more important than experience. To add credibility to his statement, he quoted Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, but really took one statement out of an interview, removing the context that supported what she was saying. There’s some sense to that statement. Having great skills is very important (at least skills relevant to the role you are seeking to fill). His argument, is that deep experience in an area doesn’t necessarily mean that you have the skills to perform. And that a […]