Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
Blog
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
Hanging Out
I was on my bike last weekend, riding to the beach to hang out with my nephew. He’s a really cool guy, a sophomore in college, world class sailor, a surfer-dude. What makes him even cooler, is he let’s me hang out with he and his friends every once in a while. Saturday was one of those days, I was going to meet them at the regular surfing spot. As I was riding down to the beach, the phone rang, it was the “family ring” so I stopped and answered it. “Hey Uncle Dave, we’re at a new beach, the […]
Performance Management Friday — Getting Personal
For this week’s Performance Management discussion, I’m shifting gears quite a bit. It’s a topic few sales people think about as an aspect of managing their personal performance, but it’s critical. All the best sales people I’ve met spend time setting specific goals in this area. I’d like to focus this discussion on Personal Development. Too often, sales people surrender their personal development to whatever the company does—the annual sales training meeting, tools or resources on internal websites. If their managers are doing a good job in coaching, the manager may recommend resources they might use to improve their skills […]
Wishful Thinking And Intent
Wishful thinking and intent can look a lot like the same thing. They are similar in that they focus on a future goal or outcome. Something like, “Winning the deal,” “Making the quota,” “Beating the competition.” After that, the similarity ends. See wishful thinking has no plan, no action, no execution behind it. Intent is focused. There’s a plan and a strategy. There’s fierce execution of that plan. There’s vicious focus–people with intention will not let anything get in the way of their attainment of the goal. There’s pragmatism and adaptability—those with intention know they can change anything about their […]
Reflections, Lessons, Courage To Follow Your Passions
Lessons on life and business. Take the time to watch, then take a few moments to think what you want to change–are you pursuing your passions, if not, find them and pursue them. Life is too short and precious to do anything else.
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. […]