Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
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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
Insight, Influence, Value Creation, Trust……
In simplifying our communications, we tend to isolate topics. It’s easier to talk about Constructing Insight just by focusing on that. Or likewise for Influence, Trust, and any number of topics on increasing our ability to connect with our customers. In reality, we can’t isolate these topics, none stands alone, each is required, each strengthens the other. We seek to influence our customers’ decisions, getting them to choose to change and to choose us their partner in moving forward. We’ve seen our efforts to influence and persuade others fail when we push or pitch our solutions. Or we are trying […]
Win/Loss Reviews
Win/Loss reviews are critical to continuous improvement. Do you conduct them? Amazingly, for as much effort as we put into winning or losing a deal, I see too many organizations being very casual about analyzing actual performance and outcomes. I seldom see win reviews conducted. Sometimes I see loss reviews conducted–but most often, it’s not a loss review, it’s a reason code in a CRM system–and most of the time it is price or a product reason. Sometimes I see managers conducting loss reviews, less to learn from what happened, but more to beat up a sales person with, “How […]
Effectiveness Must Precede Efficiency
In our every day rush of trying to get things done (play on words is not intentional), we seek to constantly improve our efficiency. We look for all sorts of time saving devices. Whether it’s the latest gadget, new time management approaches, the latest in tools to automate much of what we do, we seem focused on efficiently done. In the rush to efficiency, we sometimes forget effectiveness. A bad thing efficiently executed is still a bad thing. We’ve just inflicted it on the recipient much faster, and have the potential to re-inflict it just as easily. So all our […]
Sitting With The Problem
Often, both we and our customers seem to rush through the buying process. Sometimes, we both move forward without really understanding the problem we seek to solve. Perhaps the customer has done a lot of research on what they think they want to buy. They’ve formed some opinions, narrowed alternatives to a short list, and are ready to move to a selection and decision. Sometimes, that’s effective. For knowledgeable, educated customers, who have bought frequently, it may work. They know the issues they face very well, they understand the alternatives, pros/cons, and can make a very good decision. Other times, […]
This Is How I Work (Series)
Charlie Green asked me to follow his and Anthony Iannarino’s posts on the same topic, so here goes: Location: Varies, at the moment it’s a desk in my room at the Radisson Hotel in Sao Paulo, Brazil. My office is with me, I’m with my clients all over the world. When I’m at my home office, it’s in Southern California. Current Computer: MacBook Pro. Backup in the home office is an iMac. Mobile Devices: IPad Air, IPhone 5, Black 180 Page Eureka Lab Notebook and Uniball Rollerball Pen, Priority Pass Card. What Apps, Software, Tools Can’t You Live Without? Like Charlie and Anthony, my […]
Reputation Management And Social Media
I always hate starting a post with an apology or disclaimer, but I must. I’m going to gore some professional colleagues and some close friends. It’s not intended to be malicious, but perhaps it shows that all of us can get caught up in things which, ultimately, adversely impact our reputations and credibility. Building great reputations, creating some level of trust across extended networks takes time and consistency of purpose. Betray that in little ways and it’s like chipping pieces from a stone. Over time you diminish your credibility and reputation, you erode trust. Social media present powerful tools and […]