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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’s Next?
A critical question for every sales professional is the question of “What’s next,” particularly as we look at the deals we seek to move forward. Too often, doing deal reviews, sales people share what’s happened, but struggle with the question of “what’s next?” They know they are trying to win a deal, too often, they respond, “Well, I’ve got to get an order.” But when probed, “What are the next things that have to happen to get the order?” The majority of sales people that can answer the question, generally respond, “We have to do a discovery call, we have […]
Automation–Creating Higher Impact Interactions
There’s a lot of discussion, most of it pretty misguided, about the potential impact of automation and AI on sales and buying. Most of the discussions are about customers preferring to buy through electronic channels and moving away from the need for sales people. There will be huge movements to that mode of buying with certain types of buying. Personally, for example, if I can get something through Amazon or other web store, I prefer that. Less out of avoidance of sales people, more out of convenience. But too much of the discussion of the future of selling–particularly complex B2B […]
Make Versus Buy
Recently, I’ve been involved in some conversations with some very smart people. The discussions have been addressing the need for sales people to empathize with customers’ feeling some level of shame or guilt in getting buying a product, since it is a recognition of their inability to solve the problem on their own. Frankly, I don’t get the point. The more I explore it, the less I get it. In fairness to the smart people driving the discussion, I probably don’t understand what they are saying. Perhaps, I’m guilty of wordsmithing, or perhaps I’m looking at the other side of […]
The Tragedy Of “No Decision Made”
Depending on the research you read and believe, the number of buying journeys ending in “No Decision Made,” is around 50-60%. Think about what that means. Sure, we’re disappointed–it’s a lost opportunity for us. We may have invested a lot of time, resource, and energy in competing to win the decision from the customer buying team. But the real tragedy is the lost opportunity for the customer. The tragedy of “No Decision Made,” is the customer has failed to achieve their goal. They have failed to solve their problem. They are missing opportunities they sought to attack. Think about what […]
When The Customer Doesn’t Respond The Way You Want Them To
This afternoon, the phone rang, I picked it up, “Hi, this is Dave Brock.” Clearly, there was a sales person on the line, she said, “May I please speak to Dave?” (You can see this call going south already.) When I responded it was me, without taking a breath, she launched into a 97 second pitch. I tried to interrupt, but she wouldn’t have any of that. At the end of the pitch, again without taking a breath, she asked, “Can I schedule a meeting and demo?” My response was, “No.” Without, a pause, she went for her alternate close. […]
What Your Customer Doesn’t Know Can Kill Them!
There are few industries in the world that aren’t being disrupted in some fashion. Existing competition doing new things, new entrants with different business models, shifting technologies, global competition, business and digital transformation, industry/market changes, and continually shifting customer needs all impact our customers and their abilities to grow and succeed. Sometimes our customers recognize these–or even may be driving the change. They look at their businesses differently, they explore new opportunities and consider new strategies. As they examine what it takes to exploit these new opportunities and execute the new strategies, inevitably they are driving change initiatives in their […]