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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
Being Right Doesn’t Count, Engaging The Customer Does!
Within 30 minutes this morning, two things happened. First, a good friend called ranting and raving about a prospecting call that went wrong. Then I saw Todd Schnick’s brilliant post on the same issue. Let me backtrack a little. My friend called, very upset about a prospecting call yesterday. It was an important prospect, he’d managed to get agreement from the VP of Sales for a conversation, so he called. A few things happened initially, that put the call on a bad track. Something had come up with the VP and it wasn’t the most convenient time, but my friend […]
It’s Too Late If You Only Help Your Customer Solve Problems!
A lot of what we have always done as great sales people is to help our customers solve problems. But that can’t be what drives us in our jobs any longer. If we focus on helping our customers solve problems, we’ve missed a huge part of our value creation. If we focus on helping our customers solve problems, we become part of the 57% fodder, which is just this decade’s version of RFP fodder. What we really need to be doing is Creating Problems For Our Customers! Oh, this could go so wrong if you stop reading here. Let me […]
Prospecting Is The New “Prospecting”
I’ve been involved in a number of discussions on prospecting recently. One sales exec complaining to me when I suggested he and his people needed to be prospecting. His response was, “Marketing has the responsibility for generating and giving us high quality leads.” When I asked, “Are you getting enough to make your numbers,” from the look on his face, I knew he wasn’t, but I also knew he wouldn’t listen to me–he was firmly entrenched in his position. (Needless to say, I didn’t get that project, but suspect I will in a few months with his successor, the CEO […]
The Power Of Visualization!
No, I’m not going to get all “new wavy” and start chanting on you. There is a huge amount of literature on visualization, some of it starts getting out there, but a lot of it is rock solid. Recently, Michael Harris, commented on one of my LinkedIn Posts. In the post he brought up visualization. In reflecting on our LinkedIn exchange, I thought about how powerful visualization is in influencing, often totally unconsciously, our behaviors and the outcomes we create. Before I dive, in–a few examples, to start illustrating the point. Many of you know I’m a wannabe athlete, so I […]
Sales, Profession Or Professionalism?
I’ve gotten tangled up in a number of conversations about “Sales Needs To Be A Profession,” lately. To be honest, I’m relatively indifferent about the discussion about whether sales should be a profession or not. But you can’t drag me off my soapbox on the subject of professionalism in sales. The “Profession Of Selling:” Usually when we talk about a “profession,” what we are referring to is a certification process. That process often requires a minimum level of formal training/education, some level of practical. but supervised experience, and some sort of certification process–usually some sort of exam. When we talk […]
Don’t Trust Your Sales Process, Challenge It, Break It!
Anthony Iannarino wrote a post, “Trust The Sales Process.” It’s a great read, but I’ll take a contrarian approach. Sales people shouldn’t trust the sales process–they should challenge it and try to prove that it’s wrong! Before I go further, I have to admit I’m playing some head games with you, I actually agree with Anthony, but think we need to approach it a little differently. The Scientific Method: To provide a little context to my argument, many of you know I fall back to my background in Physics and science. When a scientist develops a new theory, say E=MC(2) (Thank […]