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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
Independent Sales Reps — A Powerful Channel
I’ve been involved in a number of discussions about independent sales reps recently. They are a terribly misunderstood and under-appreciated sales channel. Independent sales reps can be a solution to coverage and market access challenges, but only if we leverage them in a way that makes sense. I see too many organizations making too many mistakes in thinking about this channel. They do just about everything wrong, then complain about the independent rep, without understanding the channel was predestined to failure. The biggest error I see organizations make is transferring our cost and risk problem to the rep. Many organizations, particularly […]
Imitation May Be A Sincere Form Of Flattery, But It’s A Loser’s Strategy
It seems imitation is rampant, we’re surrounded by it. Often there seem to be more imitators–copy-ers than innovators and leaders. In the music world, we see all sorts of tribute bands. (I’m a fan of a Doors tribute band, Wild Child, –their lead singer is Dave Brock. I keep trying to convince folks that’s me playing Jim Morrison). These bands are great, but they never achieve the greatness of the bands they are imitating. They always be just what they are, facsimiles of the real thing. In the case of tribute bands, we know they are imitators so, as customers, […]
Selling Is The Easy Part, It’s The Buying That’s Difficult
I was reviewing a sales situation with a client. He knew exactly what he needed to be doing. He had a good understanding of the customer’s needs, he knew who he was competing against, he had clearly mapped the critical things he needed to do. I asked him what concerned him most. He responded, with some frustration, “The customer just can’t seem to get their act together, they keep slowing down my sales process!” He went on to describe how disorganized the customer was. The user wasn’t moving forward as fast as they could–the day to day distractions of their […]
My Name Is Not “Occupant Or Current Resident”
I received a surprising email the other day. It was from some “expert” in selling. The approach surprised me, I would have thought an “expert” might have known better. The email is one of those we see too often. It was addressed to the sender–clearly the recipients were all listed in the “bcc” field. The email went on to ask my help in promoting something this individual was doing. It also asked for the courtesy of a response—so I guess in some sense, this post is my response, though I really don’t think that courtesy was earned. Given the tools […]
The Handwritten Prospecting Letter
I’ve been tracking some discussions about old school approaches to engaging customers. There are a number people talking about the power of handwritten thank you cards and notes (I’m a real fan of this myself). One of my clients has done a study and has found brief handwritten introductory prospecting notes, with hand addressed envelopes are very effective. For select prospects, they send well researched and handwritten notes–unique to each individual. These are never more than a few paragraphs. They seem to have high impact and generate good responses. Leave it to some clever direct marketer to take this to […]
Innovation In Sales
Innovation In Sales—sounds a little like an oxymoron, something like sales intelligence. I was intrigued by the question my friend Lauren Harper posed on Focus. Innovation is critical. The pace at which customers are changing the way they buy, demands rapid change and innovation. Without it, we will be left behind. We will become uncompetitive, our products and services will be commoditized, we will be left to fulfilling orders at the lowest possible price. Yet innovation is tough–or we make it tougher than it need be. I think the problem is that we have a tendency to associate innovation with […]