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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
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 […]
“We Shouldn’t Be Coaching Deals, We Should Be Coaching Skills”
I was struck reading the title of this article, “We Shouldn’t Be Coaching Deals, We Should Be Coaching Skills.” Its premise is so far from what I believe, that I had to read it to see if I was missing something. It was a thoughtful article, I ended up being unconvinced, but it helped reminded me how badly we misunderstand coaching. Consequently, how badly we coach. I thought I’d riff a little about these misunderstandings, hopefully getting you to think differently about your own coaching or expectations of coaching. Coaching is and isn’t about the numbers. We have goals and […]
The Lost Opportunity Of Focusing On Customers With “Needs”
It’s always terrible to start a blog post with a disclaimer. It’s great to have customers with “needs.” Implicit in this, is they have recognized they have a problem or opportunity and are somewhere on the path to addressing that—including searching for solutions. These customers with “needs” are great. Our ability to engage them is much easier, since they are more likely to be interested in learning about how we can address those needs. There are some challenges–they may have preconceived ideas, they may be going down a path that’s very different, they may not have a complete understanding of […]
How Do I Find The Best Salespeople?
I was just talking to an outstanding Vice President of Sales. The solutions his company develops address very complex issues in “manufacturing.” (I’m using that as a surrogate for what he is really doing.) It’s a complex sale. It’s an early stage company, they are starting to have great success and are closing some very large, intriguing deals. He needs to grow the sales team, hiring BDRs, Account Managers and others. He asked, “How do I find the best sales people?” I asked, “Well what are the characteristics of the best sales people you have on board now? What are […]