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
A Virtual Sales MBA
Matt Heinz came up with a very provocative idea. He created a self-education plan for sales professionals. A course of study or “virtual MBA.” First, I’m flattered to be included on his list of “blogs you should be reading.” Matt’s is certainly one I read, and you should read as well (but he is either too modest to put it on the list, or realized people had figured it out–since they were reading the post). What would a “Virtual MBA” for sales look like? One thing I notice about the very best people in any profession is they are […]
Preparation Enables You To Get Out Of Your Own Way
Often, I get pushback from folks when I talk about leveraging a sales process, developing and documenting a deal strategy, or researching and preparing for sales calls in advance. The arguments usually focus in a few areas, “It restrains my creativity,” “It cramps my style,” “Every situation is different.” The list can go on, but to my mind they are just excuses. In reality, research, preparation or leveraging a process enables you to get out of your own way. Preparation enables you to be truly present and participate in the meeting or call, or to be responsive to twists and […]
Don’t Count On Your Customer To Be Good At Communicating
As sales professionals, we spend a lot of time learning how to communicate. We read countless books and articles, we learn how to ask better questions, we learn (hopefully) how to be better listeners, we learn how to be more persuasive and to do much better presentations. We seek to become master communicators. But we forget, effective communications is two ways. Regardless how effective we are as communicators (and too many of us have a loooonng way to go), if our customers can’t communicate, we can’t be impactful. Unfortunately, we take it for granted. We assume that our customers can communicate effectively–with us and […]
Things Are Changing!
It’s a brand new year and we are changing some things at the site. The biggest piece is the launch of Partners In EXCELLENCE Radio! Well, technically, it’s a podcast series, but I’ve always had this secret dream to be a radio DJ, so here’s my chance. A confession, I’ve always disliked how I sound–the Midwestern drawl, the occasional stutter, and the slight monotone. But hang in there, I’ll get better! What’s most important, I hope, is the content. We’re trying to introduce some special features in the Podcast, I’ll be rolling them out over the next few months. But […]
Starting With A Clean Slate
Sales is one of the few professions when we start each new (fiscal) year with a clean slate. Everything is reset. Whether we had outstanding success and overachieved are quotas or we struggled and didn’t quite make it, we come into a new year with clean slates. New quota’s. Sometimes new territories and customers. Usually a lot of excitement around new initiatives and programs to help us be more successful. We may have celebrations—Sales Kickoff Meetings–celebrating the success of the past year and getting excited about the coming year. It’s a great feeling! However, in reality, we aren’t starting with a […]
Thinking Of Others —Water Changes Everything
As we enter the closing hours of 2012, it’s a time when all of us pause to reflect on the past year. Things we’ve achieved, things we missed. We start anticipating the New Year. The wonderful thing about sales is that each year, we get to wipe the slate clean and start all over. Whatever our performance in the past year, it’s a new year with new goals, new programs and initiatives, new challenges. We get to go into the New Year refreshed, everyone is on equal footing. (My apologies to those of you whose fiscal year doesn’t end with […]