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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
Coaching To Your Strengths Or Your Salesperson’s Weakness?
I was reminded in a great conversation with Bruce Lewolt of a problem all managers tend to face in coaching. We tend to coach to our strengths–not to the weaknesses of the sales person. It’s something that’s almost subconscious, but limiting to the individuals we are coaching, as well as overall organizational performance. We see it all the time. Recently, I was watching a sales manager coach one of her sales people. The manager was particularly strong on closing and negotiating. We had looked at the sales person’s pipeline. A lot of the deals seemed to be stuck. Despite all the […]
Sales Acceleration, Andy Paul Interviews Dave Brock
I had the pleasure of talking to Andy Paul about Sales Acceleration. We discussed priorities for sales leaders, where sales acceleration fits in, and what sales acceleration actually means. This discussion was sponsored by Pipeliner CRM and originally appeared on their site: “Sales Acceleratation” Means “Buyer Acceleration.”
Rethinking Account And Opportunity Prioritization
I’ve written quite a bit about the importance of defining our “sweet spots.” It’s really important, both from an account prioritization (think of all your account based marketing/sales strategies) and to make sure you are prospecting/qualifying the right deals. Too often, the definition of sweet spots is far too broad or general. We may say: We’re targeting the financial services industry, or manufacturing companies, or any other segment. But any of these are huge. Financial services includes commercial banks, investment companies, insurance, hedge funds, credit card, financing and a number of other segments. Each of which are very different. Likewise manufacturing […]
How Do You Start Your Prospecting?
I’m coaching a frustrated sales person. He’s running up against a brick wall on his prospecting. He’s sending emails, calling, sending emails……. Most of the time there’s no response, so he sends more. Sometimes, to shut him down, he get’s a response–perhaps it’s an “Unsubscribe” in the title line, or more politely, “Sorry, it doesn’t make sense to talk, we don’t have budget.” The experience this sales person was having is the same story I hear from thousands of others. Fundamentally, he was starting his prospecting in the wrong place. Let’s back track a little. I asked him to forward […]
Deja-Vu All Over Again, Death Of Sales People
My friend Kelly Riggs got me all wound up on this topic I hope had died, but apparently hasn’t had the sense to die. As you look at related titles at the bottom of this post, I’ve run out of titles and use variations of the same one over and over. Kelly writes about an infographic on the death of selling that’s making the rounds. I understand the infographic, buying into it makes you want to buy the author’s products and services. I don’t really blame them, they’re selling, just like many of us do in our sales and marketing […]
Stop Helping The Customer Buy!
Surprisingly, I’ve received more comments, questions, and pushback on my Solving The Customer’s Problem post than I expected. In hopes of providing clarity or adding fuel to the fire, I thought I’d continue. Let me be clear, helping our customers buy is critical. It’s a giant step forward from what most sales people do. Typically, we show up and throw up—pitching our products, even our solutions. This leaves the customer having to figure out, “how do I apply this to my business, what does it do for me.” The reality is customers don’t have time and won’t make the time […]