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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
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” Don Mulhern
Preface: Don Mulhern is a great friend and colleague. One thing that struck me in Don’s contribution is the joy in “doing the work.” Reflecting on other stories, everyone is excited to “do the work.” Another thing struck me: “And I love what professional selling is not. It isn’t the smarmy, pushy approach using sleazy tricks and gimmicks that unfortunately is how it’s still perceived by many. Rather, it requires process, structure, discipline and collaboration with customers to help them improve their business outcomes. Why I Love Sales Dave, I found your question very thought provoking. As I pondered […]
Grinding It Out….
ChatGPT and its colleagues are, too often, a debilitating cheat for sellers who don’t want to put in the work. There, I said it, I got it off my chest. Don’t get me wrong, these tools are very powerful and helpful. I leverage them constantly through my day, but for very different purposes than the majority of sellers. My feeds are filled with tricks and hacks. Most focused on efficiency, few focused on impact, differentiation, and value. There are prompts for “researching and understanding” any role you might be selling to. Or any market or industry. Hacks for structuring and […]
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” Chloe Wold
Preface: I’m departing from my normal process of introducing a new story about selling. Every once in a while you see something so special, moving, and important, you have to change things. Chloe’s story is just that. I’ve told the story of a variety of others. Some with very distinguished leadership and selling careers. People who have managed 1000s and led multi-billion efforts. People who have been individual contributors, learning, growing and achieving great success. Chloe Wold is different. She’s been in sales for less than a year. It’s her first real sales role. But of all the stories I’ve […]
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” Klaus Leutbecher
Preface: Klaus Leutbecher and I met in the early 90’s when I was at Keithley Instruments. At the time, he was running sales and Germany, later ran sales in EMEA. “Why I’m So Interested In Selling” Let’s start with a disclaimer. Throughout all my professional life it never felt like “selling” or “following a career plan”. Please let me explain with some anecdotes. I started off with an electrical engineering degree working for a German manufacturer of electromechanical/electronic sub-systems, e.g. tuner/remote controls for TV-sets. In 1978, very early in my work life and only because I spoke some English, I […]
In Search Of Objections
I don’t know how many conversations I get into on “objections.” Less experienced sellers wring their hands, figuratively, worrying about objections. Poor performers are terrified, often taking objections personally. I have a different point of view on these, perhaps a little unusual. While I don’t provoke objections, I think customers raising them is an important indicator. It tells me they are paying attention, that they are engaged in some way. It would be far worse, if the customer didn’t object. The high probability is not that they agree with everything you say, rather they don’t care enough to object. Objections, […]
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” Ron Guilbault
Preface: Ron Guilbault has been a thoughtful sounding board for all sorts of ideas on selling. It’s become a fascinating process. I get a note from Ron. It’s about something he’s observed in his work, it may be something I’ve written that has generated more ideas. We’ll go through a few email exchanges, often jumping on calls to dive into the issues more deeply. One of the ideas that struck me in his story is, “When I recommend solutions that solve problems, it’s exciting and rewarding. At times I’ve been asked for help in areas outside of what I was […]