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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
Lead Gen, Marketing, Nurturing And Other Musings
The other day, I wrote, Just Because I Downloaded Your eBook. I was surprised by some of the discussions from sales and marketing professionals. So I thought I’d continue the discussion. There were a lot of people who are offended by being asked for name, email, and other contact information for the eBooks and white papers. I’m empathetic. I always think before providing those, at least 50% of the time decide I’ll forgo the materials, out of fear of being inundated with mailings. There are too many–and too many that should know far better–that define “nurturing” as a daily pummeling […]
Relationships Are Rooted In Action
Relationships are important in selling. However, I think too many are have the wrong idea about what relationships are. Too many think relationships are rooted in the pleasant manner of a sales person, the quick smile, great conversation, quick wit, a slap on the back, supported by the occasional lunch or golf game. But relationships are really different, they are rooted in action. Relationships are not based on what we say, but what we do. The corollary is that our actions are purposeful and create value. Otherwise they waste time–and we can never build a relationship if we wasted time. Critical […]
Just Because I Downloaded Your eBook……
Marketing and sales really need to get their acts together. I’m almost hesitant to click on a download for an eBook or White Paper. It’s not for the inevitable box: Name, eMail, Company. Actually, that’s a fair trade for an eBook. I ask for the same, so I have no problem with that. Where I have the problem is the Phone Call or the Follow Up eMail—-“I see you are interested in our solutions for…….” You know what I mean. You can almost guess the automation systems people are using by the timing of the call or email. Some companies, I […]
Beating Lower Priced Competitors
I read an interview with a very well known sales pundit on the “6 Ways To Beat Lower Priced Competitors.” At the end, I sighed, thinking, “How can some of the ‘best in the world’ continue to get things so wrong.” There were six items listed, without knowing them, you can probably guess, they are the old stand by’s taught in every Sales 101 course. In certain situations, some may be valid–but that’s not my point. Whether they are right or wrong, is not the issue. How we determine what is important and differentiated is what’s critical and how we win […]
If We Make It About Price, We Force The Customer To Make It About Price
This post should be filed under the “I’m not creative enough to make these stories up. ” A close friend is VP of Procurement for a very large multinational. This morning we were catching up on a number of things and he mentioned 3 very large vendor negotiations he had just completed. I should have guessed what he was going to say when he said, “Dave, when are sales people going to understand price is important, but that’s not the only thing people like me care about?” He went on to describe the situations. “Dave, these vendors have been incumbents for […]
On Thought Leadership And Meaning
This will be a bit of an unusual post for me. Usually, I ramble on about all sorts of things. Today, it will be brief. More importantly, the words won’t be mine. One of my favorite speakers, authors, thought leaders is John Gardner. He held many government positions including cabinet posts, was the founder of Common Cause. He was born in 1912 and died in 2002. I’ve been rereading a number of his speeches and books. I just came across a speech I had never read. It was an address to the graduating class of Sidwell Friends School in 1986. […]