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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
Sales Transformation–Without The Customer
The other day I was reading a very thoughtful piece, from someone I respect. It was about critical success factors in transforming the sales organization. At first, I thought, “This guy is really on target.” But as I got further, I had an uncomfortable feeling. By the end, I thought, “This is interesting, but where’s the customer?” I went back to reread the document. The word “customer” was never mentioned. The word “buyer” was mentioned once. I thought, “How can we be talking about sales transformation—or anything about sales—without first talking about the customer?” I think this person had fallen […]
Innovation And Improvement — Whose Job In Sales Is It?
Before I jump ahead, let me first tackle the basic notions of innovation and improvement in sales. Too many may look at this post thinking, “I’m struggling to make my numbers, don’t bother me with this talk about innovation and improvement.” I can empathize with this feeling. We are overworked, we have too much on our plates. Research says fewer than 50% of sales people are making their numbers. We’re so caught up in “fighting the alligators” that we forget the “swamp needs to be drained.” But these are the very factors that mandate the need for innovation and improvement. […]
Performance Management Friday — Balanced Performance
As sales people, we may be responsible for a lot of different things—we may have a number of product lines we can sell, we may have responsibility for retaining and growing current customers, as well as acquiring new customers. There may be a number of different strategic objectives our company may have for us. However, sometimes, we get stuck in a rut–we have our favorite product lines–the one or two products we know very well, those that we have had great success in selling. Or we are stuck calling on the same customers–people who we know, customers with whom we […]
When Nurturing Becomes Pestering
Everyone want to nurture their customers and prospects. We want to provide them meaningful, relevant content. We want them to be informed and updated. We want to build our thought leadership. We want to build a relationship. At the point when they are ready to buy, we want them to remember us, pick up the phone and give us a call. But too often, nurturing becomes pestering. Do I really need to hear from you every day? I can barely keep up with my job, is your content–regardless how compelling really meaningful and relevant on a daily basis–or could you […]
Return On Your “Selling” Investment
Some who have been following me for some time may be a little surprised about this title. I’m always focused on creating value for the customer, aligning sales process with the customer buying process, and being viciously customer focused. But, selling is a “for profit” activity (even in not for profits). It’s critical the customers we work with give us a fair return on our selling investment—if they don’t thy’re not doing their job! Well maybe that’s a little too strong, but it’s critical that we invest our time, where customers value that investment. There are customers that will never, […]
Who Are You Building Your “Customer Experience” For?
Customer experience is a hot topic. There’s lots of activity with companies building better customer experiences, whether it’s focused on the “buyer’s journey,” the post sales customer experience, or the customer life cycle. With our own company, I’ve seen how suppliers and potential vendors are restructuring things to create a “better customer experience,” or to “deepen our relationship.” I get calls from our “relationship manager” from lots of companies. They call to introduce themselves, they say they are responsible for our account, and ask how to better serve us. At some point, they attempt to pitch a product. I listen to […]