Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
Blog
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
On Harassment
For the last couple of months, as more and more cases of harassment are publicized (and we are only seeing a small fraction of a percent of the cases), all of us have to step back and think of what we may have done–or not done with the inappropriate exploitation of power and demeaning of human beings. It’s caused me to pause and reflect, did I ever do anything purposefully or accidentally to cause harm to a woman or anyone else? The physical attacks and abuse were easy to discount. They have always been unimaginable and unthinkable. I wasn’t raised […]
It’s Not How Well You Sell, It’s How Well You Can Get Your People To Sell!
I’m constantly amazed by the mistaken view too many sales managers have about their role. A reader called my attention to a discussion on LinkedIn. A sales manager was bragging about how he could “Sell Circles Around Anyone.” Clearly, he didn’t understand his job and with that attitude would fail his people, his company, and his ability to reach his goals. The “Superman/woman Seller” syndrome is all too common in sales managers. Too often, we make the mistake of moving our very best sellers into sales management roles. These characters sweep in and are driven to demonstrate their selling superiority […]
Are You Coachable?
Being coachable, whether you are a top executive, a middle manager, a front line sales manager, or an individual contributor is critical to your success. To grow and develop, to improve our abilities to achieve our goals and results, we have to be constantly learning and developing. Having others providing feedback, coaching, helping us think about ways in which we might improve our ability to achieve our goals is something we must actively seek out. Yet I’m amazed at the number of people that are not only uncoachable, but actually refuse to take coaching and feedback. One of my clients […]
Secret Sales Hack—Fewer Conversations!
In a sales world that seems to be dominated by ever increasing volume, it’s ironic to realize one of the greatest sales hacks is actually to have fewer but more impactful conversations. Some years ago, conducted a survey of buyers and sellers. One of the findings in that research was that sales people tended to make 37% more calls than necessary to close. As we drilled into the data, we found the fundamental reasons were they weren’t designing and executing high impact sales calls. Let’s pause for a moment, think about the last 10 calls/meetings you had with a prospect […]
You Don’t Have The Time Not To Coach!
One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “How do I find the time to coach?” My immediate reaction is, “How can you possibly do your job without taking the time to coach?” Let me deconstruct this a little. Managers are accountable for making sure their teams hit their numbers. But there are only a few ways to do this. The manager can play “super sales person.” After all, the manager was probably a top sales person that was promoted into the manager role. Here’s the challenge with this strategy. First, when the manager was an individual contributor, […]
Product Versus Solution Selling
It must be that time of year, but recently I’ve gotten a number of queries from thoughtful executives: “Dave, we need to transform the way we sell from product to solution selling……” That statement is always a little confusing to me, naturally I ask, “What does that mean and why do you want to change?” Here the conversation usually gets a little fuzzy. Usually the response is “Customers want solutions not products….” My response is, “I get that, but what do you mean when you want to move from product selling to solutions?” Alternatively, I might ask, “What solutions do […]