Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
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.
Preface: Who doesn’t know Anthony Iannarino? Anthony has been a friend/colleague for years. One of the things that has made me fascinated about his work is he thinks differently and deeply about selling. And it’s that difference that makes him so special. Thanks for your contribution Anthony! When I was twelve, someone told me that if I knocked on every door in my apartment complex and each of the ones on each side, people would give me money. I asked every person that answered the door. My Sunday delivery was 300 papers, making it impossible to deliver them early enough, […]
Read MorePreface: John Tan is CRO of Data#3 in Australia. He’s a great friend and client, leading one of the highest performing sales organizations I’ve encountered. John’s thoughts resonate with me because they span several perspectives. First, a personal perspective as a seller. Second, a leadership perspective as a CRO who cares deeply about the people on the team. Third, a vision of what we and our customers achieve through working together–and isn’t that our ultimate goal as sellers? The sales journey is such a personal thing and everyone’s story is so different. I think thats what makes the sales game […]
Read MoreJust as selling has evolved, buying has evolved–but differently. Too often, there is an alignment challenge between what buyers need and what sellers do. We seem to be on diverging paths, and this creates problems for both buyers and sellers. What don’t buyers need from sellers? While it’s always dangerous to make generalizations because there are always exceptions, but with that as a disclaimer, let’s focus on what buyers don’t need from sellers. I’ll stop here, there’s probably a lot more, but this is sufficient. What’s interesting, as we look at many sales engagement strategies, and most of our training, […]
Read MoreSome of you may be reading my series, “Why I’m So Interested In Selling.” I have several dozen stories so far, releasing a few each day. Everyone that’s responding is an extreme high performer. They come from varied industries ranging from motorcycles and extreme sports, professional services, software/SaaS. medical devices, semiconductors, industrial products and others. The organizations they represent are early-mid stage to giants in their sectors. Some have run multi-billion sales organizations and companies, some are managing their own territories selling millions a year. They come from all parts of the world. But as you read through their individual […]
Read MorePreface: Dave Kurlan is a very well known consultant, coach, trainer. When you encounter him in social media, you already know how driven he is about the “state of selling,” He is viciously focused on helping drive performance with his clients. I’ve learned a lot from him, and respect what he does. My only problem with Dave is his choice of baseball team, he’s a rabid Red Sox fan. All this goes to prove we can’t be perfect in everything. As I read his story it’s the last sentence that sums everything up for me. I’ve been selling since 1973 […]
Read MorePreface: Marc Pugens was a client, later becoming a close friend and business partner. I first met Marc when he was running a large part of the sales organization in a joint venture with Ericsson and HP. He later went to manage EMEA Services Sales for HP. I remember, at the time, having some envy. He had managed and orchestrated one of the biggest deals in HP’s history. As I recall, it was a multi-year deal for somewhere around $4-5B. I had managed a few billion + deals in my career, but his dwarfed mine (Marc’s and mine were in […]
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