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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
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 […]
Account Based Everything Re-Imagined
I love the emerging focus on Account Based Everything. The principles of account based sales and marketing are fantastic–actually taking me back to my foundations in selling, where everything we did was account based. Since the terminology around Account Based Everything changes with every person who talks about it, let me outline what I think it is. An intense focus on the customer, specifically on an account by account basis. Targeting specific accounts/customers based on our ability to solve their problems and the potential we might have with the account over time. Understanding the strategies, markets, business drivers of the […]
The Perfect Close
I don’t write a lot of book reviews for sales or marketing books. This Fall, however, there are a number that are really noteworthy, so I’ll be sharing brief reviews of them. I tend not be a great reviewer, because to do a review, I actually dive deep into the book. Inevitably, I find things that I question, things the author may have handled better, things I think are dead wrong. For me, it’s useful, because I’m learning. Sometimes, though, I wonder if the authors think it’s useful, inevitably I send notes, ideas, suggestions, “Can you change this or add […]