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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
“Why I’m Interested In Selling” Eric Anderson
Preface: Eric Anderson is my brother-in-law. He’s the “cool guy” in the family. We started hanging out in college, he went into the Peace Corps in Kenya, then came home, riding a motorcycle from Nairobi, up the Nile, and across Europe. He’s always been involved in extreme sports, racing and motorcycles. First as a driver (winning lots of races like the Baja 1000). Then he moved to the business side of things, running sales in various motorsports companies, founded the Motorcycle Safety Council, started a helmet company and several others. Today, he runs a consulting company, helping some of the […]
Who Should Be Buying?
We tend to spend the bulk of our time responding to people who are looking to buy. They’ve gone through all the tough work of identifying they need to change. They have gone through the work of defining the problem, defining what they want to achieve, getting funding, identifying the risks, looking for solutions…. And then they talk to us. We identify them because they are hitting on our websites, downloading white papers and we reach out to them saying, “We have the best solutions in the world, can we talk…..?” We send them emails and dials, connect with them […]
Do You Suffer From “Selling Bad Breath”
“Selling Bad Breath” repulses the people we are trying to reach. Somehow when we open our mouths or send an email or do an outreach, all it accomplishes is driving our prospects and customers away. No amount of “mouthwash” disguises selling bad breath. Prospects and customers can always sniff it out, regardless how we try to cover it up. What is Selling Bad Breath? (Hold your noses as you read…..) All these are selfish and self centered. It is all about them and has little to do with the customer. Then there are those that are thinly disguised as being […]
You Have Solutions, But Do I Have The Problem?
I had a fascinating conversation with an outstanding sales person today. We were talking about his prospecting challenges. Like all of us, he was struggling to get the engagement he wanted. Let’s call him “Stephen.” We talked about some of his strategies. He was very focused on the customers and people he was prospecting. He leveraged trade shows to meet people, then followed up with prospecting notes. He researched others, understanding their roles and what their companies did, creating personalized emails. He tried to connect what he learned they were doing with his prospecting efforts. Stephen read a typical prospecting […]
“My Obsession To Provide Customer Value,” Christian Mauer
Introduction: Several weeks ago, I wrote, “Sellers, Are You Really Interested In Selling?” My good friend, Christian Mauer, challenged me, “Dave, why are you so interested in selling?” It was a great question and he caused me to reflect, I wrote, “Why I Am Obsessed With Selling.” At the same time, I challenged Christian and others to answer the same question. Christian has provided a fascinating perspective. The commonality between the two of us is the obsession around helping customers solve complex problems and create great value. This is such a fascinating narrative, please take the time to read it. […]
Looking For Answers In All The Wrong Places…
AI is changing the world (“Wow, what an astute observation, Dave.”). The capabilities of the tools are evolving very quickly, our capabilities in using these tools are evolving much less quickly. One of the biggest mistakes I see sellers and marketers making is depending on AI for answers. “AI does not answer questions…..”* Some of you are saying, “Dave, you are crazy, I go to ChatGPT, Gemini, Bard everyday and pose questions. And it provides tremendous insight.” Let me dive into this. AI shares information and knowledge in ways that have been unimaginable. It reduces what may have taken hours […]