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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
Leadership Development And Succession
Normally, I refrain from commenting on specific organizations, particularly when they are clients, and I’m going to be critical. But I have to applaud Jack Welch’s comments at the World Business Forum on the way HP’s Board has handled (or not handled) leadership development and succession planning. But the issue is not really about HP’s Board or Jack Welch, that’s just a convenient example. It’s an issue that should be at the forefront of every leader’s mind. Paraphasing Welch, “One of the primary jobs of leaders is to prepare the next generation of leadership.” It’s the responsibility of leaders at […]
Selling Is About People!
As I re-read the title of this post, it somehow seems a little odd to be reminding sales people that sales is about people. We are in a people to people business, our job is to connect with people effectively. In working with them, we tend to focus on their role in the organization and in a specific opportunity we are pursuing. For example, we may focus on Mary, the CIO, her priorities for providing information technology services within her organization. We present our solutions in the context of her priorities and goals for the organization, we stay very business […]
Asking The Right Questions
A few weeks ago, I returned from a long trip. I wasn’t feeling terrific, but chalked it up to jet lag and exhaustion. After a few days, things started getting worse. I was feeling very bad, pains in places I didn’t think I should be having pains. I was in agony, so I started searching the web. Went to the best medical sites, typed in my questions and symptoms, read the responses. Googled my symptoms, read the responses. I was amazed at the depth of information I was getting from the web. All the answers converged on a probable diagnosis, […]
What Would You Do If You Were In Your Customer’s Shoes?
Not long ago, I was in a conversation with the CEO of a professional services company. His team was struggling with getting into the customers and engaging them in conversations about their solutions. “They just don’t want to talk to us about our solutions!” he said. “How do we get them interested?” I actually here the same thing from lots of other people, they struggle with getting the customers to spend time with them. These are sophisticated sales professionals. They have carefully researched their customers, they have relevant references, they have great value propositions, still they can’t get into the […]
Should We Promote Our Best Sales People To Be Sales Managers?
Should we promote our best sales people into sales management? It’s a question that comes up a lot. I’ve written about it as have others. Most people come down on the side that this is a terrible strategy, not only do we lose our best sales people, but they are bad managers–demotivating the team, causing problems, and all sorts of things. I was asked this question in an interview the other day. My response was, “It depends. If your best sales person is the best candidate for the sales management job, it’s probably a great decision.” See I think we look […]
Engaging The Customer 2.0
On October 5-7, there’s a “don”t miss” opportunity for all sales (and marketing professionals, the SalesEdgeOne.com Thought Leader Summit, Engaging Customer 2.0. Social selling and social media is changing about everything we do in working with customers and prospects. No one has the answers, there are great things happening, and much that all of us can learn from and apply in our businesses. This virtual Summit features thought leaders from the Founders Council of CustomerThink’s SalesEdgeOnecommunity. It’s not your normal web conference. It’s two days of high interactivity, panel discussions, Q&A, and discussions with your peers. Join us to learn how to […]