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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
Duz Speling nd Gramer Matr?
When I was a young sales manager, my manager had a big candy jar on his desk filled with dollar bills. In my first meeting, I learned its purpose. I was presenting where my group was year to date, what our plans were, and the support (read funding) we needed to move forward. We finished the meeting, I was trying to “close” for what I wanted, but he dismissed me by saying: “Please put $10 into the jar and come back when you are ready to give me a thoughtful recommendation.” I was shocked and confused. I thought I had […]
Learning From Lazy Sales People
Often, when I get involved with a new client, I seek out their “laziest” sales people. You know the one’s I’m talking about. There’s always someone that hides away. He keeps a low profile, probably stays out of the office, never volunteers to do things, but always seems to make the number. Perhaps he’s just barely making it, but he’s making it (which is significant when data show that fewer than 50% of sales people are making the number). These people stand out in an odd way. In organizations where there is a frenzy of activity, managers asking for more […]
Wake Up! The Paradigm Has Shifted!
There have been some interesting comments about my post, If You Are Learning Your Customers’ Needs You Are Too Late. Both Andy Rudin and Tony Zambito had great insights at Sales Edge One. The discussion made me realize how too many sales people and managers are caught in an old paradigm. We were trained in: Find a customer that has a problem they want to solve, understand their needs and requirements, propose a solution, make sure the value proposition is differentiated. That paradigm is changing rapidly. Customers are disintermediating sales from their process. One they recognize they have a problem […]
Collaboration–Now More Critical Than Ever
Those of us who sell complex B2B solutions to large companies live in a world that is increasingly complex. Our customers face very challenging problems. Our solutions are very complex. Gone are the days when a sales person could handle everything with the customer herself. The days of knowing all about the products and being able to answer every question the customer might have with little support are gone. To be successful in creating value for customers and driving growth, sales people can no longer go it alone. We need a network of people in our companies matched with the appropriate customer […]
If You Are Learning Your Customers’ Needs, You Are Too Late
Classically, as we qualified and engaged our customers in solving their problems, sales people focused on understanding our customers’ needs. Our questioning process was focused on identifying pains, needs, and problems so we could present a justified solution addressing those issues. Don’t get me wrong, these are still important parts of the selling and buying processes, but if this is where we are first engaging the customer, then we aren’t maximizing the value we can create, and we aren’t maximizing our ability to win. Intercepting our customers at this point of the buying process is too late. By this time, […]
The Web, The Answer To All Our Customers’ Prayers!
Let’s face it, customers really hate us. They will tolerate our marketing content—as long as it isn’t too promotional—just the facts please. Sales people, well that’s another story, we’re really a total waste of their time, unless the are looking for lunch or a golf game. With the exception of the lunch and golf game, the web now can solve virtually all our customer problems. Customers can find peers, other people who have the same interests, concerns, problems. “Trusted sources,” that can provide much” higher quality information and insight” about vendor products than the we can. Our role as suppliers […]