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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
Do You Have Enough Confidence To Listen To Your Customer?
I think too many sales people lack confidence! Listen to them on sales calls, they’re constantly on the defensive or on edge. They ask questions, listen selectively–usually hearing what they want to hear, often reacting defensively to something the customer might say. They always rush to respond, sometimes interrupting the customer before they’ve completed what they have to say. A customer may have an objection, a question stated poorly, a different point of view. When stated, too many sales people immediately react and respond. Some sales people make a mistake. They think they are driving the discussion, “controlling the conversation,” […]
Stop Basing Your Probability Of Winning Based On Where You Are In The Pipeline!
Yeah, yeah, we all know it’s how we’ve “always” forecasted probability and weighted our pipelines. Yes, for some reason all the CRM vendors “out of the box” implementation of the pipeline ties probability of winning to where you are in the sales process. But when are we going to stop this simplistic and flatly wrong thinking about the probability of winning a deal? You know what I’m talking about. We have a prospect who returns our call, we immediately declare a 10% probability of winning, because our systems are set up like that. We have a couple of meetings, have qualified them, determined their needs, […]
Social Business Is Not About Technology!
It’s hard not to be drawn into a conversation about Social Business. Everyone seems to be talking about it. Usually, one to two sentences into the conversation the focus is on, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Piinterest, LinkedIn, how many followers, how do generate likes, and on and on and on……. We also seem to think social business is “new.” I think it’s because whenever we talk about social business, it seems to be so closely intertwined with technology and social media. But social business has been with us virtually since there has been commerce and trade. The problem is Social Business is really not about […]
Sales Operations–Under Appreciated Resource For Sales Effectiveness
Sales Operations has a different meaning for every organization. In some organizations, Sales Operations keeps the numbers—they provide all the reporting on sales attainment, the forecast, all other metrics. In other organizations, they are responsible for systems, programs, processes, and tools. In others, Sales Operations also provides training. In other organizations, they are responsible for pricing and coordinating responses to big deals. Sales people have a love/hate relationships with folks from Sales Operations. “They keep harassing me for reports,” “All they care about is the systems and the numbers!” “They’re the back room operations people–they don’t understand what it takes […]
Pipeline Integrity
The funnel/pipeline is a key tool for sales people and managers to assess performance. It provides so many insights beyond knowing whether you will make your sales goals. One of the first things I look at on any new project is the pipeline. It tells me so much about the organization or the sales person. It’s one of the most powerful tools available to sales professionals, but too many fail to understand it. A couple of years ago, I was called into a large technology company. “Dave, our folks just don’t know how to close! We’ve got lots of deals, […]
You Have To REALLY Care!
Last night, I had dinner with a great team of executives. The conversation went over all sorts of topics, but toward the end of dinner, one of the executives turned to me and asked, “If you had to identify just one thing that would help me and my team perform at the highest level, what would that be?” My mind was racing, I could easily reel off a half dozen things–clear metrics, strong process, customer focus, …….. But he asked me for the ONE thing. As I reflected, I replied, “You have to REALLY care!” I thought of the great managers I’d had in […]