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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 Questions Are A Sales Person’s Best Tool–It’s Not Because Of The Answers
Art Petty wrote a great post, 4 Reasons Why Questions Are A Leader’s Best Friend. It inspired this post–it’s been something I’ve spoken about often, but never written about. Much has been written about questioning and it’s importance, particularly in the discovery phase of the sales process. It’s through effective questioning that we determine what the customer is trying to achieve, why, what they are looking for, how they will evaluate alternatives, and how they will make a decision. Sales people are eager to get the answers to their questions because it tells them what they need to do to win the […]
Sales Road Kill
The other day, responding to a great comment on one of my posts, I referred to Sales Road Kill–those “sales people” who either do not recognize the world of buying and selling has changed forever, or those that ignore it, continuing with the same hackneyed approaches of the past (I’m frankly not sure they have ever worked). There are endless blogs, books, and articles about how much has changed. I’ve often said more has changed in the past 5 years than ever before (actually I’ve borrowed that phrase from Dave Stein–he said it originally). I talk to thousands of sales […]
Silly Me, I Thought Selling Was Supposed To Generate Revenue!
I’ve always been under the impression that revenue generation (quota) was the key objective for sales people. One of my own key metrics and that of the teams I’ve managed is Revenue–sometimes orders, sometimes revenue growth. But always, it’s somehow been tied to money coming in the door as a result of my work with prospects and customers. I’ve always focused my time on finding customers that are interested in my solutions, who want to make a change, and who are willing to invest money in achieving the results they expect. That’s a fundamental principle in qualifying. It’s always seemed to be very important–I don’t […]
The Bar Is Being Raised For Both Buyer And Seller
“More has changed in buying and selling in the past 5 years than in all prior history.” I’ve talked about this a lot, everyone is. It’s becoming almost hackneyed and trite. Much of this has been driven by the vast availability of information available to buyers on the web. Research indicates that buyers aren’t engaging sales people until they are 60-70% through their sales process. Rightfully, the argument is that sales people must change–dramatically! Absolutely, no doubt……….. duhhhhh. Much of the discussion, however, is misdirected or at least misunderstood. The rise of the self educated customer doesn’t mean the sales person is unnecessary […]
What’s The Diagnosis?
My wife hates going to Doctors—I actually think that’s a basic intelligence test, I don’t think anyone likes going to Doctors. It’s impossible to get appointments, costs are skyrocketing, and the experience–well, I’ll stop there. About 6 weeks ago, I noticed her limping, so I asked if she was having problems with her leg or foot. She said she’d tripped earlier in the morning when she was on the golf course and her foot was bothering her. We both thought it would go away, ignored it for a few days, but then the pain was getting worse. I said, “Go […]
Metrics Matter, But Which Ones?
As sales people, we’re certainly familiar with metrics. There are all sorts of measures that are supposed to help us set priorities and drive our behaviors. The king of all metrics, hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles is quota–revenue, orders, whatever. Then we may have all sorts of other metrics. There may be activity metrics like the number of phone calls we need to make, the number of deals we have to have in our pipelines, and so forth. Sometimes, we have so many metrics, it’s difficult to determine which we should focus on, so we just do […]