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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
“I’ll Know It When I See It”
“I’ll Know It When I See It.” I hear that phrase way too often. I hear it when I’m talking to a manager about hiring new people. Usually it’s in response to a question I ask like, “What specific skills, experiences, competencies, attitudes, and behaviors are you seeking in the ideal candidate?” Or when I talk to someone about their search for partners or strategic alliances. Usually, in this case, it’s in response to “What’s the profile of the ideal partner?” Often, when I talk to a sales person about qualifying prospects. They seem somehow to feel or intuit whether […]
Consistency Of Execution
One of the things that separates top performers, individuals and organizations, apart from everyone else is the consistency of execution. Consistency of execution has 3 core elements. Knowing the right thing to do to drive the expected results. Doing those things consistently, day after day. Continually sharpening them, improving executions (As Stephen Covey would say, “Sharpening the saw.) At an individual level, sales people may have remarkably similar backgrounds, experiences, capabilities. They’ve gone through exactly the same training, they are using exactly the same tools. But there are real differences in performance. There are differences in “make up,” and basic […]
Show Me That You Care!
The first version of this post was titled “Tell Me That You Care.” It was a very wordy saga about a near tragic customer relationship/customer experience with Bank of America. It had all the makings of a financial thriller: A damsel in distress–my wife along with her personal and her company accounts. A dashing hero– OK, maybe not so dashing. There was fraud, criminal activity, police, suspected identity theft, financial malfeasance. certified documents being sent, missed commitments, dashed hopes. Everything but the sex–well, at least that’s not a part of this story. Like many of these stories, an unexpected plot twist at the […]
“A Shot In The Dark”
I recently received a prospecting email on LinkedIn entitled, “A Shot In The Dark.” The individual opened with the usual, “I was looking at your profile, you appear to be the right person…..” The rest of the email isn’t really relevant, I think I was the “right” person because I’m CEO of my company, I suspected rather than taking “A Shot In The Dark,” he was using a “Shotgun In The Dark.” But I reflected on the phrase, “A Shot In The Dark.” I’ve used it a lot, in the past, I’m sure most of us use at least the […]
Have I Got A Deal For You!
No, I’m not talking about some smarmy sales person. I’m talking about a, possibly naïve, customer. Have you ever had a customer call wanting to talk about the “dream deal?” They don’t pose it as the dream deal, but upon hearing it, we recognize it as one. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it happens, it immediately causes most normal people to salivate and dollar signs start dancing before their eyes. Often, these deals are too good to be true–and what happens is they are usually too good to be true, they may never happen. I’m working with a […]
Sales People Build Your Personal Brand And Thought Leadership!
Thousands of blogs and articles on social selling, media, marketing focus on building Personal Brands and Thought Leadership. The experts proclaim sales people must become thought leaders and focus on building their personal brands. These same experts say sales people must engage socially, whether through blogging, social engagement, or whatever mechanisms, developing and demonstrating their thought leadership to prospects, customers and markets. In truth I struggled with these concepts. From a corporate management point of view, I’ve always thought it more important to build and reinforce a company’s brand and thought leadership. I’ve wondered why a sales person with a […]