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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 Know The Answers, But Do We Know What They Mean?
We have all sorts of technologies that give us the “answers.” ChatGPT can answer just about any question imaginable (As long as the data is before April 2023). Where years ago, we struggled to find answers, now they are abundant. But we have some new challenges, “Do we understand what the answers mean and can we apply them to the specific situation?” ‘Do we understand which answer we might choose or recommend, and why we should make those choices?” “Do we have answers that are meaningful and impactful to our customers, and do they get it?” I sit in all […]
Are We Leveraging AI To Its Greatest Potential?
My feeds are filled with all sorts of stuff on Generative AI and LLMs. “All sorts of “”Experts” offer miracle cures and prompts to “give us the answers, doing all the work for us.” All of what I see from sellers leveraging ChatGPT and similar tools are well written, most are unimpressive. All these outreaches are similarly ambiguous and non specific, hence usually irrelevant. As I look at how too many sellers are using Generative AI, I wonder if we are using it to its full potential? Or are we misusing them, tragically? Before I dive into this discussion, I […]
Why I Am Obsessed With Selling!
I wrote a post, “Sellers, Are You Really Interested In Selling?” My friend, Christian Mauer, true to form, often poses some of the most challenging questions to my post. He did this asking, “Dave, why are you so interested in selling?” The answer is easy, but perhaps worth explaining. I’m obsessed with selling—all things selling. I’m driven to find and close deals. I’m driven to help clients address really tough problems. I’m fascinating to learn more about selling, different approaches, different tools, things others do to succeed. I’m excited by how selling is changing and the future of selling. I […]
Sellers, Are You Really Interested In Selling?
Without a doubt, selling is a really hard job. Regardless what role you hold in selling, it is very difficult. We get more “No’s” than “Yes’s.” We have to find ways of engaging people who do everything they can to resist those efforts. We have aggressive goals we must meet. We are often driven by high levels of activity. At the same time, there are endless details and minutia that we have to do as part of the jobs in selling. Finally, while we sell change, the rate at which we have to change to achieve our goals can be […]
The Growth Opportunities Are Stunning, Why Aren’t We Capturing Them?
My friend, Matt Heinz, posted a fascinating article which reminded me of some market analysis I’d forgotten. It’s from Gartner analysis, now about 3-4 years old, but still relevant. Summarized, at any point in time, as we look at B2B companies (To help us understand it, let’s imagine the total market size is 1000 companies): So with this as a baseline, let’s nerd out on some more data and math: Let’s pause and reflect on this for a moment. That’s a huge lost opportunity. These companies want to buy something but don’t. What if we focused on reducing no decision […]
Problem Or Product Focused Selling?
It’s Monday morning, I’ve just cleared my email and social feeds. Each of us experiences the same thing, grumbling at the terrible quality outreach. Then, too many of us turn around and inflict bad outbound prospecting on our own victims. 100% of the prospecting messages I see are product focused. The outbound communications are something like: Sometimes, the product pitches are thinly veiled by a problem: Every prospecting message I see focuses on the sender, their products, and their companies. Nothing focuses on our priorities and our company. But unless the prospect is very late in their buying process, product/solution […]