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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
3 Questions
I’ve had the good fortune to spend a lot of time with some inspirational leaders. Over time, I’ve noticed some common patterns in every conversation they have with people in their organization, customers, suppliers, even within their business communities. While there are variations, I call it the “3 questions.” The three questions have almost magical power: They have the ability to communicate and reinforce the top priority of the leader. They have the ability to help the leader learn about things that impact their top priority. They have the ability to help the person the leader is speaking with think […]
What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing — Part 4
We’re almost through the 14 principles of lean manufacturing that underlie the Toyota Production System (TPS). If you haven’t read the three preceding articles, you may find them helpful: What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing, Part 2, and Part 3. So far we’ve looked at the Philosophy of TPS, which provides the foundation for everything. It’s interesting, while these 4 philosophies are the foundation for the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing, they have nothing do do with manufacturing. They are sound business practices. Supporting the 4 philosophies are the 14 principles. We’ve completed the first 9, today we’ll […]
What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing — Part 3
Ir you haven’t had a chance to read the first two articles in this series, take a moment to skim them, What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing and What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing–Part 2. This post follows on those. If you have been following, I’ve been using the Toyota Production System (TPS) as the foundation for this discussion. It is the foundation form much of our thinking on lean manufacturing. In the last post, I got through the first 4 of the 14 principles in TPS. I’ll continue with Principle 5. Principle 5: Build a culture […]
Can We Self Coach
I posed a question on LinkedIn, “Can we self coach?” The responses are interesting and, for the most part, thoughtful. Paul Lanigan made a comment that neatly sums up my thinking: “The whole idea of a coach is to shine a light on what we don’t see.” I think this is an important concept and why any high performer must actively seek coaching from their manager and even mentoring from people they respect. There’s a huge amount high performers can and should be doing for themselves. They should always be seeking to learn and improve, but in a systematic way. […]
What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing — Part 2
As I mentioned in my prior post, there are a lot of people promoting the application of Lean Manufacturing principles in sales. There is a lot we can learn, at the same time, there are huge areas where the comparisons break down. If you haven’t read the first post, What We Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing, be sure to read this. This post continues on the foundation of Toyota Production System’s 4 P’s, by diving into the 14 principles. Recapping them briefly: Philosophy as the foundation: Principle 1: Base your management decisions on a long term philosophy, even at the […]
“How To Get Customers Come To You….”
I just read a very good post by a famous marketing “guru.” It was entitled ” How to get customers to come to you…” It’s marketing and sales people’s dreams, getting customers to come to us. Something we’ve done has interested them. Something has provoked them to ask for more. They may not be ready to buy, but it could be the starting point of a relationship. Customers coming to us makes everything easier. They usually may want to learn more, so we get to talk about our favorite things—our products, our company, ourselves. There are many in marketing and […]