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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
We Want To Improve Sales Effectiveness…..
“’We want to improve sales effectiveness!” is often the starting point of many of my conversations with executives. “Terrific,” I respond, “What are you trying to achieve?” There’s an awkward silence, “What do you mean—we want to improve sales effectiveness, how can you help me improve sales effectiveness?” This is always a difficult start to a meeting, because the response is always the same, “It depends on what you are trying to achieve.” Unfortunately, too many people think there is a solution to sales effectiveness – possibly, because too many consultants say there is a solution to sales effectiveness (it’s […]
What Happened To Common Sense?
I was talking to a customer today–not one of mine–possibly one of yours. We were talking about her frustrations, as a buyer, with sales people. She said something that struck me, “What happened to common sense?” It’s always fun and refreshing to talk to buyers, someone who is subjected to all the stuff sales people inflict on them. As a side note, I recommend every sales person take one of their customer out to lunch in the next four weeks and talk to them about their experiences with sales people, and how they would like to be treated. In general, […]
A Quote Is Not The Objective!
I’ve noticed an interesting, yet disturbing phenomenon recently. It’s sales people who think their job is to provide a quote or a proposal. Let’s not forget, our jobs–what we get measure and compensated on is not quotes, it’s orders! What’s important to our companies is the revenue we get from fulfilling an order! In smaller organizations, inexperienced with selling, it’s understandable that people get confused, mistaking a customer’s interest in pricing with purchase intent. However, I’m seeing this in larger organizations in which many of the activities seem to be oriented around number of quotes issued. Maybe it’s driven by […]
We Have The Opportunity Of A Lifetime
Recently, I listened to an interview of Seth Godin by Michael Hyatt. It’s an absolutely brilliant interview, but that’s not what I want to write about. Seth used a phrase that I want to co-opt for this blog post. He said, “We Have The Opportunity Of A Lifetime.” I’m captivated by that phrase. As sales and marketing professionals, I think we have the opportunity of a lifetime. My friend, Dave Stein, has said sales has changed more in the past 3 years than through our entire history. I’ve written that we are at an inflection point—being driven by the customer. […]
The Customer Service Call
Perhaps I’m a little grumpy, anxious to get an early start to the weekend, but I had to get this off my chest. I just hung up from a “customer service call.” It was from a Fortune 100 company. Here’s how it went: Customer Service Rep (CSR): “Hi, I’m so and so from such and such company. I’m calling to follow up on a warranty repair we did.” Dave (puzzled): “I’m a little confused, we haven’t had a warranty repair recently, how can I help you?” CSR: “We replaced this part on this device, we just wanted to make sure […]
“We Want To Be Your Partner!” Another Closing Technique?
Partnering has been in vogue for the past few years. It seems as though every sales person wants to “partner” with their customers. Marketers talk about partnering, consultants want to be everyone’s partner. Whatever happened to valued vendor-customer relationships? Whatever happened to “I want to provide you a quality solution, that fulfills all your requirements, at a fair price, with great customer service.” What about the customer who just wants a dependable supplier that meets their commitments? Somehow just selling to a customer who is buying is no longer sufficient. We have to talk about a much deeper form of […]