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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
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” John Callies
Preface: I met John Callies in our very first sales training class for IBM. We were at Endicott, New York, where most of entry sales training was conducted. Through our first year, every few months we’d see each other in Endicott at another class. We lost track of each other–John ended up going to senior executive levels in IBM, eventually was the General Manager of IBM Global Finance. We stumbled on each other about 10 years ago, at Dreamforce. We renewed our relationship, discussing things we had seen happen over our very different careers, periodically catching up an exchanging ideas. […]
You Are Your Company’s “Value Proposition”
We still have very antiquated views of our “value proposition.” Most of the time, we restrict it to the value that might be realized through the purchase and implementation of our solutions. Ideally, we will have developed a business case for our solutions, perhaps looking at cost reduction, ROI or some other financial return the customer should expect from our solution. Sometimes, we look at an extended view–not just the results from the implementation of our solutions, but the extended impact of our solutions as part of a larger change initiative. And our competitors are doing the same thing. And […]
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” John Nardella
Preface: When I met John Nardella years ago, he was an eager but relatively new AE for a company selling DevOps tools. Within a couple of years, he grew to be the top performer, globally. Today, he is responsible for some of SAPs largest enterprise accounts. John is viciously focused–he deeply understands the customer and their drivers. He will always do the right thing for the customer. At the same time, he considers his quota as something he passes on the way to achieving his personal goals. Like others who’ve offered their stories, John has a clear purpose: “Each sale […]
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” Kelly Riggs
Preface: Kelly Riggs and I got acquainted a number of years ago. We started sharing ideas on LinkedIn, then Kelly has invited me to appear on his podcasts. Like me, Kelly is a “grinder,” he doesn’t believe in tricks/gimmicks, he believes top performers do the work. One of the things Kelly highlights is the thrill of competing and achieving, “why I love the profession – it provides a way for me to feed my competitive nature. I want to set goals and reach them. I want to look at the top of the leaderboard and figure out a way to […]
“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” Don Mulhern
Preface: Don Mulhern is a great friend and colleague. One thing that struck me in Don’s contribution is the joy in “doing the work.” Reflecting on other stories, everyone is excited to “do the work.” Another thing struck me: “And I love what professional selling is not. It isn’t the smarmy, pushy approach using sleazy tricks and gimmicks that unfortunately is how it’s still perceived by many. Rather, it requires process, structure, discipline and collaboration with customers to help them improve their business outcomes. Why I Love Sales Dave, I found your question very thought provoking. As I pondered […]
Grinding It Out….
ChatGPT and its colleagues are, too often, a debilitating cheat for sellers who don’t want to put in the work. There, I said it, I got it off my chest. Don’t get me wrong, these tools are very powerful and helpful. I leverage them constantly through my day, but for very different purposes than the majority of sellers. My feeds are filled with tricks and hacks. Most focused on efficiency, few focused on impact, differentiation, and value. There are prompts for “researching and understanding” any role you might be selling to. Or any market or industry. Hacks for structuring and […]