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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’s This Deal Keep Slipping?
I’ve been reviewing a bunch of deals in a client’s CRM system. There’s a disturbing pattern, as we start approaching the end of the month, all of a sudden the target close dates start getting pushed out. Deals we expected to close this month slip into the next month. As I review the deal histories, I see the same pattern, month after month of slippage. I looked at one deal, the target close date had shifted 11 times in the past 6 months! Deal slippage is a critical metric. If deals continue to slip, it tells me the sales person […]
Webcast: The Frightening Cost Of A Salesperson
I had the pleasure of being hosted by the great folks at PipelinerCRM. John Golden, Eric Quanstrom, Rachel Miller, and I had a wide ranging discussion on “the business of sales.” Our discussion started with recruiting, continued to onboarding, training, coaching, sales process, performance management, and even time management! Whew! I’m exhausted 😉 I hope you enjoy the discussion as much as I enjoyed participating. Thanks to John, Eric, Rachel, everyone who participated, and the folks at Pipeliner! Be sure to watch their other Sales Chats!
“Nothing Happens Until A Customer Decides To Change”
There’s the old saying, “Nothing happens in an organization until a sale is made!” Usually, it’s sales people saying it, often trying to defend their positions in the organization. While the statement is true, we really need to revise it to more closely reflect the reality of what it takes to generate revenue, and the emerging new role of the sales professional. We really need to be focused on, “Nothing happens until a customer decides to change.” If a customer is happy with what they are doing, if they believe they are operating effectively, that they have no problems, that […]
How Well Do You Know Your Customer?
My friend, Tim Ohai, has a brilliant bet he makes with sales people. He puts a $100 bill on the table, saying, “If you can talk about your customer, their problems, opportunities, and challenges for 20 minutes, without ever mentioning your products, the $100 is yours.” The tragic part of this story, is that Tim has never had to pay the $100! The unfortunate imbalance is, any sales person can talk for hours on end about their products, pausing occasionally to take a breath or a sip of water. They can fill whiteboard after whiteboard with facts, figures, feeds and speeds. […]
Starting The Conversation With A Lie……
I’m sure you experience the same thing I do. Everyday, I get inundated with phone calls and emails. There are some common patterns in the conversation or emails, including: We’ve researched your company carefully and know we can help you…….. Having looked at your company, we feel we can help increase leads/sales/profitability [pick one] by 20% [or some other tantalizing number]…….. We’ve worked with companies like yours and have produced…….. We’re local and want to give you personalized support…… I have to admit to some sadistic pleasure in returning many of those calls and emails, I know what to expect, […]
“Fix The Sales Problem!”
The executive team of a large division of a very large corporation called me to “fix the sales problem.” We were to have a meeting to discuss the issues they faced and to discuss potential corrective actions. I’d asked for data to better understand the sales performance issues. I, also had short phone discussions with a few key sales managers to understand the issues. The conversations were very revealing, some of the issues they described: Year after year, numbers and expectations of the sales organization had increased tremendously. There was little sales input, just a number provided by the executive […]