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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 Manager Or Individual Contributor?
In many organizations, sales managers also have a personal sales territory. The practice is not limited to small organizations, I’ve worked with a number of companies in th $500 M range who have some of their sales managers also carry a personal sales territory. In the smallest of organizations, it’s difficult to avoid, but in general, I think it’s a lose-lose practice. The job of the sales manager is coaching and developing their people to achieve the highest levels of performance possible. In smaller organizations, it’s also driving the sales strategy, making sure the right tools, processes, and people are […]
We Have To Invest In Revenue Generation
A key goal of most businesses (profit and not for profit) is revenue generation. After all, without revenue, the business can’t exist. I often talk to entrepreneurs and small business owners about sales–specifically, “How do we afford sales people, how can we afford to invest in sales?” There’s lots of bad advice out there, plenty of people with advice on how to sell for free—I ranted about this yesterday in Can You Afford Not To Invest In Sales? I’m often surprised in speaking with entrepreneurs and small business owners. They don’t hesitate investing in product and service development, they put […]
Can You Afford Not To Invest In Sales?
I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses. A topic that comes up frequently is, “How do I afford a sales person?” My knee jerk reaction is, “How can you afford not to have someone accountable for generating revenue–sales? How canyou afford not to invest in sales” Then I read lots of horrible advice how to sell without it costing you anything (Driving Sales Without Hiring A Salesperson). My reaction is that it’s simply bad, wrong, misleading, and BS! (But I don’t feel strongly about it.) Don’t get me wrong, affordability is an issue with all […]
Those Pesky Details! Making Things Happen
My last post, Effective Sales Coaching–Closing The Loop, has generated some interesting feedback. One of the thoughts that came up is our propensity to plan, talk about new ideas, but our failure to move forward. I encounter this all the time. Well intended people invest lots of time and energy in coming up with new strategies, great ideas, even action plans with target dates and accountabilities. Then we go back to do our jobs…. All our good intentions seem to go by the wayside, the momentum of everything else that we have on our plates overtakes us and we fail […]
Effective Sales Coaching–Closing The Loop
Great coaching is one of the highest impact activities a sales manager can undertake. A key element of the sales manager’s job is developing each person on their team to perform at the highest levels. We struggle with coaching–finding the time, doing it effectively and consistently, developing our own skills in coaching. Even though we can always improve, increasingly I see managers stepping up to coaching and improving their coaching skills. However, there’s one piece I see consistently lacking what most sales managers do–it’s follow-up. Follow up is one of the most important, yet most often not done aspects of […]
What We Miss About Sales Metrics
We’re having a terrific discussion about metrics at Future Selling Institute. One of the things I’ve realized is there is something missing in the way we think about and leverage metrics. As sales professionals, we’re used to measuring and being measured. We’re focused on our quota’s and goal attainment. As sales leaders, metrics are important in analyzing the performance of our teams, people, and organization. We use metrics to assess performance, and coach improvement. This is very important, but I think each of us, whether we are individual contributors or leaders miss a key thing about metrics–using them as a […]