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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
Going Through The Motions
I watch a lot of sales people and managers doing the job. Often, they seem to be going through the motions. Technically, they may be doing the “right” stuff, but they aren’t engaged. They may be so focused on their script, they miss cues or signals to learn more about the customer. Or they’re so focused on remembering the next question, they forget to listen. Or there’s the mental checklist, “I just did this, now I have to do that, then the next thing.” Sometimes, they aren’t “present.” It’s most obvious over the phone. I hear these distracted responses, “Uh […]
Rethinking Prospecting
Prospecting is critical to our success as sales people. We need to find new customers, we search for people who want to buy our products and services. We constantly conduct prospecting campaigns–email programs about what we do, endless phone calls: “May I speak to the person in charge of copier purchases?” “I’m in your area next week, can I spend a few minutes talking about your employee benefit programs?” “Who is responsible for your financial management systems?” Email program after email program. Hundreds of phone calls. If we’ve lucky, a few percent respond, “OK, send me some information,” “I have […]
The Danger Of Being Jaded, We’ve Tried That Before!
I spend most of my time with extremely experienced sales executives and professionals. Largely, they have been selling for years, most have been very successful They bear the scars one gets from experience. They’ve “been there, done that.” In many cases, though, these grizzled veterans struggle to improve performance, but they are stuck in a rut. They are both prisoners of their own experience, and somewhat jaded by their experience. They know they have to change, but fear change. As an advisor to these companies and individuals, it’s often a struggle to overcome the resistance. The resistance is understandable, but getting them […]
I Don’t Want Your Stinkin’ CRM System
I’m so stupid. I allow myself to get sucked into discussions about CRM systems. This one has conspiracy theories worth of a Dan Brown novel. Basically the arguments are sales people versus management. The sales people are using all the classic arguments—“it wastes my time and diverts me from selling activities,” “it doesn’t help me sell more,” “it’s management’s way of micromanaging me,” “all I do is spend endless hours doing reports, I’m supposed to sell!” Managers are saying, “people have to use the system and keep everything updated,” “we need to know what’s going on,” “the sales people have […]
We’re Communicating, But Are We Really Connecting?
Technology has extended wonderful capabilities to make us more efficient. We have CRM, Marketing Automation, and Emailing systems that enable us to “communicate” in ways we never imagined or had the time to do in the past. A prospect reaches out for some information. We immediately respond with a “personalized” note and the content. Some days later, our autoresponders send another note in follow up. Perhaps something that furthers the discussion, a little additional insight, it might ask if the recipient is interested in more. Then some days later, another communication, again personalized, following up again, perhaps extending the conversation, […]
Questions As Weapons!
Lawyers always say, “Never ask a question unless you know the answer.” In courts, they don’t ask questions to learn or discover, they ask questions to make a point, to guide perceptions of the jury in the direction they want. Their questions are driven to get people to reach the conclusion that favors them. Questions are used as weapons—to defend the view they want to promote, to destroy all other points of view. Too often, as business professionals, we use questions as weapons. We use questions as weapons. We ask questions with an agenda. We’re not looking for answers. We’re […]