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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
#MyFirstSevenJobs John Pesec and Chris Palmisano
A number of weeks ago, I started following some posts about people’s First Seven Jobs. It was 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, […]
The No A**hole Rule
Almost 10 years ago, Bob Sutton published the “No A**hole Rule.” For some reason, I’ve been contemplating this quite a bit. I think it’s something both sales people and consultants run a danger of becoming or are accused of. What is being an A**hole? Clearly, there are behaviors and attitudes that are inappropriate. Often they arise from being too “Self” centered. Perhaps an overpowering sense of self-importance, or focus on “what’s in it for me.” Characteristics of this might be not listening, not being open to new ideas, not being willing to consider other positions or even to shift your […]
Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
There’s a lot of “wisdom” around phrases like “Get into your (comfort) zone…..” Presumably, it’s about getting into a good routine, building a rhythm or cadence, replicating what you’ve done to be successful. We hear and read variations of this all the time. Advice that’s well intended but perhaps the most dangerous advice we could follow. The moment we start seeking comfort or to be comfortable, we start to lose. We stop learning, we stop improving, we begin to settle for mediocrity. My friend, Mark Modesti, say, “We don’t know our own capabilities until we stretch them by doing something […]
There Is No Disqualification Fallacy! Disqualification Is Critical!
It’s not often that Anthony Iannarino and I disagree. When we do, it leads to a richer discussion where we both learn and converge on a new, shared point of view. Recently, he wrote, The Disqualification Fallacy. I found myself disagreeing–or perhaps reframing what he was saying. I think it is a critical issue, and I think too few organizations and sales people do good jobs of disqualifying and focusing. As a result, huge amounts of time and resource are wasted, both the customers’ and ours. Anthony approaches the issue of disqualification both from a “client/customer” point of view and […]
Is Cold Calling Dead?
In reality, this title is just clickbait. It’s certain to draw all sorts of attention with pundits on either side of the issue. Inevitably each shaping their “pro” or “con” arguments based on what they are trying to sell. And every time we get into this discussion, we immediately dive in taking and defending positions without even defining terms to make sure we are talking about the same thing. Before we can even answer the question and have a reasonable debate, we have to define, “What is cold calling?” If we think of cold calling as: Unprepared, random calls to […]
The Importance Of Hustle!
Hustle is both an important concept but a very unfortunate word. To many, particularly prospects and customers, it has vey negative connotations. Prospects and customers don’t want to feel “Hustled.” Usually they take this meaning as being manipulated, cheated, or fooled. Sales people who do this are often labeled “Hustlers.” But there is an important, positive aspect of Hustle or Hustling. It’s really a sense of obsessive and relentless focus and goal attainment. That’s where a lot of sales people (and managers) get Hustle wrong. They confuse Hustle with activity and busyness. They seem to think hustle is about volume […]