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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
Future Of Selling, Glass Half Full Or Half Empty?
There seem to be a couple of prevailing schools of thought promoted by self proclaimed experts on the Future of Selling. An increasingly dominant one has a very negative view of selling (ironically, promoted by many who sell their products/services to the sales function). While I may be overstating it, their view is the majority of sales people are mediocre to outright bad. It seems to have the premise, “we can’t expect substantive improvement in sales people performance, so let’s focus on the tools and techniques those mediocre sales people can use to drive revenue.” In this world, the strategy […]
Are You Selfish Enough To Succeed?
Let’s face it, we care about what we care about–usually, it’s about ourselves. Are we achieving our goals, are we getting the things done that are important to us? It’s our highest priority. Not that we are bad people or don’t care about others, but we are fundamentally driven by what is important to us and our abilities to achieve our own goals. Each of us is different–some are driven by recognition, some are driven by money, some are driven by power, some by contribution. The list goes on, each of us is different. The one common thing is we […]
“94% Of Buyers Research On-Line…” SO WHAT!!
As a warning, I’m on a rampage and am channeling my inner Keenan, so I’m likely to explode and use strong language. I’m seeing all the tired old statistics circulating again. The numbers are all over the place: Customers are 57-92% through the buying process before engaging sales. 72-94% of buyers are B2B buyers are researching on line. 68% of B2B buyers now purchase goods on line. There are endless amounts of data saying that B2B buyers are letting their fingers walk through Google at some point in their buying process. There are endless research studies talking about B2B buyers […]
“Do Sales People Make A Difference?”
Steve Burton posed an interesting question on LinkedIn: When a large ticket item 500k + is purchased in a B2B transaction how much of it so you think is down to the salesperson’s skill ? If we analyzed some these deals would the majority just be down to the buyer putting the 3 most well known options on the table and picking the most sensibly priced deal with the simplest on boarding ? My knee jerk reaction was, “Well of course!” But as I thought about it, I revised my position: Top performers always make a difference, but not only […]
Sales Quotas, A Thing Of The Past?
Recently read a provocative post declaring “Sales Quotas A Thing Of The Past!” For the most part, the article was a tutorial on pipeline metrics and a diatribe against much of the quota setting process. I don’t disagree with a large part of the article. Much of the way sales quotas and goals are set is wrong. Too often, we see manager setting goals that are arbitrary or not based on sound analysis. This isn’t just the quota, but it’s a majority of metrics that sales people are subjected to, including meaningless call metrics, activity metrics, pipeline coverage metrics–all that […]
It’s Not The SDRs’ Fault!
It seems that SDR/BDRs are bearing more than their fair share of blame and frustration from their targets. Yes, I’ve whined about them many times in my blog and on LinkedIn. I’ve thinly disguised the lamest emails and recounted misguided conversations I’ve had with these poor sales people. SDR bashing and shaming has become one of the latest “sports” in social media. People with too much time on their hands and too little empathy are lashing out, naming names. Ironically, most of these people would never have the courage to pick up the phone and do what SDRs do. Don’t […]