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
Mirroring
Early in my selling career, I was in a short training class. We were being taught how to “mirror” our customers. The concept of mirroring is it was a means of better connecting with the customer. We learned that if a customer leaned forward in their chair, perhaps indicating interest, we should lean forward. Likewise, if they leaned back we leaned back; if they swore, we swore; if they farted……. OK, I’m getting carried away with this explanation. I always felt uncomfortable doing it. It was a conscious manipulative behavior to establish rapport and gain the interest of the person […]
Let’s Banish The Word “Pitch” From Our Vocabularies!
The word “Pitch” has dominated selling language. We are constantly subjected to pitches through email, social channels and in the media. We seek, overtly, to pitch our offerings and products to prospects and customers. Recently, my good friend, ChatGPT had a discussion about pitches. I asked her the origin of this concept: The word “pitch” in the context of selling comes from the Old English word “pician,” which means “to throw” or “to thrust.” In the Middle Ages, it evolved to refer to setting up a stall or spot where one could sell goods, as in “pitching” a tent or […]
The Importance Of Follow Up
Not long ago, I was speaking with a group of sales managers. They were struggling with the performance of their people. We were talking about their account planning process. They showed me some current account plans. They weren’t great, but they were better than most I see. One thing that struck me, is that rather than giving a status report on the account, their people had identified opportunities to grow the relationship. They established action plans to pursue the growth opportunities. I asked them, “What’s happened on those action plans? What progress are your people making, where do they need […]
Are You An Indispensable Partner?
Periodically, my friend, Martin Schmalenbach, and I have conversations on the state of “Value Co-Creation,” and selling. Recently, Martin brought up the concept, “Are you an indispensable partner?” My mind started going crazy with the potential of the concept of being an Indispensable Partner. I’m still formulating my thinking on this, but in the spirit of provoking a wider conversation, here are some thoughts: How’s this different from being a trusted advisor? We face huge challenges in becoming “trusted advisors.” Too often, sellers don’t care, just playing the numbers game, perhaps remembering P.T. Barnum’s quote, “There’s a fool born every […]
Meeting People Where They Are…
Read anything on leadership, coaching, social change, human interaction, and a common theme arises. To connect and engage effectively, we have to meet people where they are at. This requires us to focus on them, where they are, who they are, what they face. It requires us to listen, probe, understand. To the degree that we can, we have to imagine ourselves in their shoes. Often, however, we listen with an agenda. So often, particularly as leaders and sellers, we are looking for the problem. After all, that’s what we do—solve problems. But the problem is not a person. It’s […]
Prisoners Of Our Own Experience
Jeremy Donovan published some fascinating data in a post on LinkedIn. He stated 5 years ago, the number of touches, per opportunity, for cold outbound was 200-400. Today, he says it is 1000-1400 touches per opportunity. His observation, “Simply Speechless” is, if anything, an understatement. He does offer some clarification, these touches are across all channels, for example email, phone, social, text. He also says this is across many accounts and contacts. What this means is to find a single opportunity, there are 1000-1400 touches across many potential customers. He goes further, saying this data is for SaaS only. As […]