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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
More Stupid Selling Tricks
It’s been a while since I’ve had a rant about people who represent our profession poorly. Today, I was a victim of one of the most dishonest and ineffective calls I’ve ever experienced. Not only did the salesperson represent himself dishonestly, but he has given me a negative impression of his company, one of the largest insurance companies in the country. Here’s how the call went: Phone rings, I answer, “Hello, this is Dave Brock.” Confused voice at the other end of the line, “Are you with [such and such a company]?” My antenna go up, he’s referring to the name […]
In A Sales Slump?
Sales slumps hit all of us for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes when we get into a slump, we seem to spiral deeper and deeper. We run out of ideas on what to do, we lose perspective. Dealing with our sales slumps, developing and executing strategies to Bust Out Of The Slump is critical for every sales person. Paul McCord wrote a terrific book based on this single goal, helping you develop and execute strategies to Bust Your Slump. He outlines 12 different strategies, giving you step by step advice for recovering from a slump, as well as offering great […]
You’re Not A Consultant, You’re A Salesperson!
Today, I was coaching a good friend on some sales calls. We were role playing the call, he was struggling with telling the customer who he was and what his company did (they developed and sold software products). He had the same problem I see many sales people have. We have been so indoctrinated with being consultative and solutions focused that we are reluctant to call ourselves “sales people.” We dance around the issue, we don’t even put the title “Sales Person” on our business cards, we cloud it with some different kind of title. (I particularly like Relationship Manager, […]
Follow The Money!
Every sales person knows about following the money–at least from the point of view of who we call on at customers, we focus on people who have the money. But let me look at this from a slightly different point of view. Last week, I had a conversation with a good salesman. He was dealing with a very complex sales situation. It was very high stakes for him and his company, he expected over $10 million in the first orders and years of follow on business. He’d done a pretty good job so far, but the deal was stalled. He seemed […]
Defy Gravity — Today!
One of the reasons I write this blog is to encourage my readers to think about their businesses differently. We are all time poor, we have more on our plates than we possibly can handle and it just doesn’t get better. We are under enormous pressure–whether self or externally imposed–to perform. Sometimes, just in dealing with all that we have to get done, we get into autopilot, we tend to go blindly through our task or to-do lists. We fall back on the old and tried and true–but they no longer are serving us as well as they have in […]
Running Naked Through Your Funnel!
First, I have to credit my friend John Cousineau with this title. It came up in a call we had recently. It seemed an appropriate, is slightly salacious, title for this subject. I must review hundreds of pipelines and funnels every year. A majority of the funnels and pipelines are overinflated–by a large amount! Lots are the result of “wishful thinking” or simply pursuing unrealistic deals, yet sales people will carry them in their funnels, even reporting on them, for months. “You know this isn’t going to happen, ” I ask, “Why do you still carry this in your funnel?” Responses […]