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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
The Customer Journey, Is It Really That Predictable?
I saw the Princeton Marching Band for the first time in the early 80’s. I was working in Manhattan, a few of my colleagues were Princeton grads, so every once in a while, we’d take the train to Princeton to watch a football game–and the “memorable” Princeton Marching Band. Take a few minutes to watch this video, contrasting Lehigh and Princeton. Lehigh is first, very disciplined and orderly. If you want to skip to just past the mid point, you’ll see Princeton (just past 7 minutes). They’re chaotic, they’re all over the place. It’s sheer comedy to see them try […]
Sales Manager—Business Manager Or Coach?
The responsibilities of a sales manager are very broad. Frontline managers have to work to make sure each person on the team is performing at the highest levels possible. They have to provide the coaching, training, systems, processes, tools, and support to enable their people to achieve their goals. At the same time, there’s the “business management” aspect of the job: Are we going to make our numbers? Are we managing our budgets effectively? What’s the forecast? How do we improve effectiveness and efficiency? What are risks and threats we face in competing, what must we do to overcome them? […]
Bits And Pieces — April 2, 2016
Just a few things to focus on this week: Charity:Water: For those of you who have followed me for some time, you know one of my pet causes is Water–that is providing clean palatable water to everyone in the world. Every December, I run a major campaign raising money for Charity:Water. I really like their programs, 100% of the money goes to water projects in developing countries. The campaign ran through mid March. I had set a goal this year of raising $8500. We ended up raising $9,535! In total, over the past few years, we’ve raised well over $30K […]
When Do You Do Your Best Selling?
The lives of most sales people seem to be split between two types of frenzied activities—prospecting, trying to find someone willing to talk to you and chasing down deals. Often, our engagement models are reflections of this frenzy. We send 1000’s of emails, hoping enough people respond. For those that do, we’re in a rush to qualify–qualifying even the most marginal because our pipelines are empty. The deals that we do find are tough. Customers are much more educated and informed. They’ve done their homework, they know (or at least think they know) what they are looking for. We face […]
“If You Take Away Your Products, What’s Left?”
I read a wonderful quote from Colin Shaw, “If you take away a company’s products, what do you have left?*” It’s a critical question each sales and marketing professional needs to answer—ultimately, that’s your differentiation. That’s the value customers want that will cause you to stand out and win. Don’t get me wrong, your products and services are what get you in the game in the first place. So great products and services are mandatory. Increasingly, however, they are table stakes. In today’s world of complex B2B buying, by the time you’ve become shortlisted, any of the alternatives will solve […]
Leveraging Interruption!
Recently, I was reading a post on cold calling, it brought up the age old, “How do you generate leads without interrupting people?” The short answer is, “You can’t!” That is, unless prospects call you, in which case we are delighted they are interrupting us! The fact is, people choose to be interrupted–whether it’s a prospecting sales person, a colleague, a family member, any one. But we choose to be interrupted. We open the email, we pick up the phone, we respond to the knock on our office doors, we respond to the text. Interruptions fill our work and personal […]