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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
Humans Emulating AI/Robots…..
There’s a lot of concern, wherever one turns, about AI and Robots becoming more “human.” Usually, it’s stories of AI or robots taking on human characteristics, mostly the bad characteristics. We reflect back on movies like “Terminator,” worrying about AI and robots taking over the world. Daily, we see examples of various forms of AI based plagiarism, some unintended, some malicious and intentional. It’s increasingly difficult to discern what’s real and what’s fake. But a reverse problem has been accelerating. It’s human beings emulating AI and Robots. Meaning, context, connecting, caring, empathy, being “in the moment,” are all attributes that […]
Is Outbound Mundane?
In reading an article about the latest hints and tips in using AI for prospecting, a sentence stood out to me. It talked about how “mundane” outbound is. The idea of reaching out, trying to engage prospects in talking about their challenges, problems, concerns, as well as their dreams and aspirations is boring and dull is striking. And, perhaps, it is this mindset that underlies the poor results we get from our prospecting. Somehow, we seem to have lost the idea there is a human being sitting at the other side of our outbound efforts. Whether it is an email, […]
“This Is The Only Way To Do This…..”
We are pummeled with “deep insights” and “expertise” on the single right way to do something. Whether it is the wording of the title of a prospecting email. The number of words/tone or call to action of that email. Or it might be the formula for the sequence and timing of touches in your prospecting. Or it may be a methodology, process, objection handling technique. It could be certain metrics, comp systems, or “THE” right tools. Today, I read something, from a very smart guy, declaring, “Long form is dead, short form is the only thing that works.” It wasn’t […]
The Problem With “Account Planning”
Somehow, the New Year is “Account Planning Season.” Possibly, last quarter, you were asked to develop your account plan, but certainly in the next month or so, you will be asked to develop and present your account plan. Usually, we pull out last year’s presentation. We blow off the digital dust, update it with what we did last year, we add the new numbers for this year, identify enough initiatives to keep management off our backs. Then we put it away for next year’s exercise and get on with our work. The first problem with account planning is we treat […]
“Fresh Starts”
Somehow, the New Year, particularly for sellers, represents a fresh start. Regardless of our performance in the past fiscal year, we start the New Year anew. If we blew away our quotas in 2023, pretty soon managers will be asking “What have you done lately?” If we missed our goals, that is all behind us, and we start anew. We may have set a few resolutions for the New Year. Things we might do better. Inevitably, there will be SKOs–inspirational messages, new goals/strategies/initiatives, and training. There will be brief celebrations of what was accomplished last year, and cheerleading for the […]
Personalization Is, Well…….Personal…..
It’s year end, people are reaching out, through all channels, with connection requests, meeting requests to sell me something, everything you can imagine. And, as you might expect, everyone has “personalized” their outreach. Somehow, though it should be no surprise, they are remarkably impersonal. I’ve gotten used to ignoring those that are addressed to D.A. Brock, or refer to my company as Excellence or Excellenc.com. They clearly have no idea about me or the company, they have just harvested a list. There are those that say, “We’re in the same LinkedIn Group….” I spend no time in LinkedIn groups and […]