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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
Do You Know What Should Be Keeping Your Customers Up At Night?
There it is, that old stand by question, “What keeps you up at night?” There lots of arguments about whether that’s the worst question one might ask in a sales call, but that’s not what this blog is about. The much more powerful concept is the ability of the sales person to engage the customer in a conversation about “What should be keeping them up at night?” Like us, our customers are overworked and time poor. Their days are consumed with just doing their jobs. Too often, they don’t get to think further ahead than the next day. They don’t […]
When Sales People Don’t Change?
“Selling has changed more in the past 3 years than in it’s cumulative history.” states Dave Stein of ESResearch. I couldn’t agree more, but would tinker with that a little, “Buying has changed more in the past 3 years than in the cumulative history of buying.” While it may seem a small point, I think it may more clearly illustrate the problem I think is happening in sales. Depending on which reports you read, this year only 38-52% of sales people will make their goals or quota. This is down dramatically from previous years. Undoubtedly, some of it can be […]
Being Different Or Being Impactful?
Everyone wants to stand out, everyone wants to be different. Each marketing campaign attempts to be provocative and memorable. Sales people try different techniques to set themselves apart, making them more memorable. But too often, it seems these efforts really miss the mark. Too often, it seems the focus is on being different. There is so much “noise” in the system that to stand out we have to be even more outrageous. We must make stronger, more dramatic claims, we must “shout” more loudly. Soon we lose sight of what we are doing, and being different becomes the end itself. […]
Unsolicited Email, Cold Calling, Prospecting, Nurturing……
So this is what’s happening this morning. I start the morning looking at email. Craig Rosenberg of Focus.com has posed an interesting question: “Isn’t sending an unsolicited email to someone the same thing as cold-calling them?” There’s an interesting discussion with thoughtful responses from people I respect. The responses are trending to “Yes it is the same, and it’s bad practice.” Hmm, interesting….. I keep going through my email. Today I received two emails that are a direct result of my attendance at the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco last week. They are just layered on the other emails I […]
Have A Canned Meeting!
Today, I got a note from Paul Castain. Paul hosts one of the best LinkedIn groups and is the author of the Sales Playboook Blog. Paul usually has an interesting perspective and great ideas. But this time, I thought he had gone off the deep end. He was advocating having a “Canned Sales Meeting.” My initial reaction was pretty strong, I understand having a reasonably standard agenda of topics for a meeting, but doesn’t having it totally canned defeat the goal? Then I read the post. I hve to jump on Paul’s bandwagon, endorsing what he is trying to achieve […]
Do You Have A Plan?
Do you have a plan? Do you have a plan for winning this deal? Do you know the key activities you must execute to win the deal? Do these activities align with the customer’s buying process? Do these activities align with your selling process? Do these activities align with the target decision date? Do you know who is inovled in the decision, their priorities, concerns, attitudes and role in the decision? Do you know the customer decision making process? Do you know who the competition is and how you will position your solutions? Do you know what the customers value […]