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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
Reflections On Mediocrity
Often we think of mediocre people or mediocre organizations as those that don’t perform well, at least in comparison to their peers. I hadn’t realized my understanding of mediocrity was wrong. It was actually an interview of comedian Norm MacDonald. The real definition of mediocrity is failing to perform to your full potential. It really struck me, when we fail to perform to our full potential, we are choosing mediocrity. It’s amazing how often I see people, sometimes myself, choosing mediocrity. Most sales people, managers, business professionals I encounter know what they should be doing. We’ve read enough, we’ve been […]
Email Unsubscribe Hell!
We all get too many unwanted and unsolicited emails. Usually, they are pretty easy to handle. If they have used an emailing system–for example those integrated into the common marketing automation tools like Marketo, Hubspot, Eloqua, or those in email automation tools like MailChimp, Constant Contact or others; one can easily unsubscribe from these emails and not hear from these companies again. Professional marketers buying lists always scrub those lists against the unsubscribe, so they don’t inadvertently send an emails to someone that has already unsubscribed. If a company isn’t using a marketing or email automation system, the practice, at […]
Systemic Leadership Failure
The Wells Fargo saga is a tragic example of systemic leadership failure. Excuses offered by top leadership continue to provide rich examples of their failures in serving their customers, their people, their communities, and shareholders. Unfortunately, as bad as they are, the current data probably only shows part of the problem. There’s probably data from the last several years that will never be presented, reinforcing the awful leadership model set by Wells Fargo top executives. Too often, blame for performance issues is pushed down the the sales person. We see it in organizations all the time, sales people aren’t performing, […]
Looking For Trouble Or Letting It Find You?
There is trouble all around us, it’s a part of business and a part of our lives. We all experience trouble of varying degrees throughout our lives. Often, we seek to avoid trouble, often we should be seeking the opposite. There are a few different mindsets we can have regarding trouble. We can hide our heads in the sand, we can deal with it when it happens, we can look for trouble, we can create trouble. Hiding our heads in the sand: Through unconsciousness or purposefully, we often ignore or avoid trouble. It could be the unhappy or difficult customer, […]
#MyFirstSevenJobs Kathy Dyer And Chris Ahearn
There’s a series going around the web about people’s First Seven Jobs. It’s been fun and fascinating to see the very first jobs people held. There’s a diverse selection of people’s first seven jobs here, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, and Keenan. I jumped onto the bandwagon with my first 7 jobs. In the comments, you can also see Hank Barnes’ first seven. It’s actually a huge amount of fun–first thinking about your own, reflecting on what they meant to you (privately) and seeing others’ experience. Consequently, I’ve invited a huge number of people of diverse backgrounds, ages, and locations, to […]
Getting The Most Out Of Dreamforce
In a few weeks the annual migration to Dreamforce will occur. I’ve only been to a couple of events bigger than Dreamforce, but it’s an “interesting experience.” Somehow, I’m certain the city of San Francisco sits a little lower in the water with the 150-180K people that converge on Moscone Center during the few days. I was asked my tips for getting the most out of Dreamforce. I’m not sure I’m a good source of advice, but I thought I’d share my experience. 1. Develop your plan and schedule well in advance, There is so much happening, so many interesting […]