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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
Sales Managers Only Have One Real Goal!
There’s a lot of stuff written about what sales managers have to do and their key job responsibilities. Some of the laundry list items include: Make sure the team makes the number, develop the strategy, manage the forecast/pipeline, manage performance, recruit, train, coach, and on and on. There lots of ways we see managers behaving. Some seem to think they have to be super sales people–the person that comes in to close the deal. Others act primarily as administrators, trapped behind a desk, analyzing numbers, internally focused, never out with their people with customers. The sales manager’s job can be very […]
Just Stop Wasting Time On Those Reports!
We all spend a lot of time reporting. Someone higher on the food chain is always looking for data. So we do what we have to do, wondering why are we wasting our time, how are they going to use it (the big brother issue), or if they even look at it. Fortunately, a lot of the CRM and related tools, if we use them, minimize the amount of time we spend reporting. If we keep them updated, they can provide most anything management would ever want. Frankly, I think we waste a lot of time on reports and reporting. Mostly, […]
The Perfect Prospecting Letter (???)
I receive lots of requests from sales and marketing experts to promote things they are doing, whether it’s a webinar, eBook, Book. Most of the time I’m delighted to do so. Many have been very generous in supporting and helping me. Even if it’s someone I don’t know, generally, once they introduce themselves and show me what they are doing, I’m glad to promote. There are usually interesting ideas, different approaches to selling or marketing, things that all of us can learn from. (I do have to admit, having trouble dealing with the sheer volume of these, currently I’m reviewing […]
Great Customer Service Doesn’t Equal Great Customer Experience
I have to admit writing this post out of frustration. I’ve been, at the encouragement of the service provider, changing our mobile plans to save money. I’m not changing vendor, just the plans. At this point, I’m beginning to believe what it is costing me in time and frustration will far exceed the money I’m saving. The funny thing is the customer service people I talk to on the phone are fantastic! They are well trained, very efficient, very helpful. They are truly a delight to deal with. From a customer service point of view, I can’t give them any higher […]
What’s The One Thing?
I’ve been having a conversation with a good friend. He’s doing a project and has come up with a laundry list of critical issues that have to be addressed. I’ve been advising him to consider, “What’s the one thing?” His reaction is natural, “It can’t be one thing, it’s all this stuff. We have to pay attention to all this stuff.” Coming up with lists of all the issues we have to address is central to how most of us address and solve problems. We have to explore, analyze, and think about everything that impacts our ability to achieve our goals. Most […]
354 Sales Conversations In Just A Week!
I was astounded to read an article from a very enthusiastic sales person. He talked about the 354 conversations with C-Level executives he had in one week. The article captivated and horrified me at the same time. By now, you know I’m a numbers guy. So I started running the numbers. I thought, “Hmm, the typical work week is 40 hours…….. well, actually no, everyone works more than that…….” You can see where I’m going. I don’t know what the typical work week is, but let’s look at this data across 3 possible workweeks: For a 40 hour workweek, to […]