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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
What Customer Problems Do You Solve, Not What Do You Do!
I was leading a discussion about value propositions with a group of product developers and marketers. We were getting ready to launch a new product, I was helping develop the launch plan. I posed the question, “What customer problems do you solve?” The answers followed the same pattern as virtually every other group in which I’ve posed that question. Most often, the response to the question begins with one of the following: “Our product has these features………” “We provide these capabilities…..” “We do this….” The discussions go through long lists of features, functions, feeds, speeds, capabilities and so forth, but […]
Time Available For Selling
Do your people have enough time available to sell? Some of you are thinking, “Dave, this is crazy, that’s how my people are supposed to be spending their time!” But a variety of research reports indicate typical time available for selling is 30-40%. We’ve conducted studies of Global 100 companies and found time available for selling as low as 17%! This data is alarming. What are sales people doing? How are they spending their time? Let’s lay some groundwork first. As we look at time available for selling, we need to look at several things. The most obvious, is the […]
Bits And Pieces — March 19, 2016
This weeks bits and pieces. First, thanks to everyone who took the time to provide feedback and ideas on some of the things I covered in last week’s Bits And Pieces (March 12, 2016). Many of you sent great recommendations for learning more about Critical Thinking. Some sent ideas for future blog posts. I really appreciate this more casual way of sharing ideas. Books: This week was a heavy travel week, as a result, I was reading on airplanes and hotel rooms. Here are 3 books I’ve completed this week: Daily Rituals, How Artists Work, Mason Currey. A number of […]
If I Didn’t Respond To Your Email……
It’s early morning, I’m clearing email. Somehow, I feel like I’ve accomplished a huge amount, wiping out dozens of prospecting emails in 5 minutes. Every once in a while, I pause for 15 seconds at one. Today, I had about 4 emails starting the same way: “I Dave, I’m wondering if you saw the email I sent last week……” It goes on with the original email attached. Sometimes, these are ridiculous–people following up on their follow up, following up on their follow up. I wonder, “What do they think they are accomplishing?” If I didn’t see the original email, that […]
Do We Set Our People Up For Failure?
I’m pretty tough on sales people. You’ve read my endless rants about bad prospecting, clueless call execution, and other examples of poor “salesmanship.” One thing, I’m certain of, is that I will never run out of examples of really bad selling. But when you reflect, you have to consider the question, “Are so many sales people really that bad?” Or is there another reason they are failing? Now before you think I’ve gone all soft on you, there are plenty of really bad sales people–people who don’t deserve to be sales people. These are those that lie, manipulate, and do anything […]
“No Decision Made,” Are You The Problem?
Depending on the research, No Decision Made (NDM) represents a huge percent of the deals we “lose.” CSO Insights puts it at over 40% of forecast deals. CEB put it at over 60% of pipeline deals. Whatever way you look at it, it represents huge lost opportunity and wasted efforts on our part. Too often, we shrug our shoulders, “It’s the customers, they just can’t get themselves organized to buy.” “They just couldn’t sell management on the business case.” We tend to look at this, thinking it’s out of our control. Reflect on your own deals in the past 12 months. […]