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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
Rethinking The Customer Buying Experience
I’m a great fan of Customer Experience Design. Unfortunately, most of the work in customer experience design tends to be focused on web design, user interfaces and product design. There is some interesting Design Thinking work being done in business process/strategy. I think as sales professionals we need to rethink the Customer Buying Experience. Actually, it’s already being done, but, it’s being designed without us! Social media and networking create means by which customers are already redesigning their buying experiences. Axel Schultze wrote an outstanding article, Sales Process 2010, that outlined much of this. Social media isn’t the only place we are seeing […]
Stop Being Stupid! The Customer Isn’t Always Right
This morning, I was intrigued by a question on LinkedIn. A person felt offended, a salesperson had criticized the this individual’s company. The individual was very upset, complaining to the sales person’s management, and posing the question on LinkedIn asking whether anyone else had experienced sales people being impolite and criticizing the customer to the customer and how to handle it. I don’t know about this specific situation and whether the sales person was offensive or presenting a different point of view to the customer. It did remind me of an experience a number of years ago. I was with […]
Is Sales A Blood Sport?
I’ve been having an off line discussion on competitiveness and agressiveness in selling. In the discussion, terms like “sales is a Blood Sport,” or “sales by it’s nature is Predatory.” This kind of terminology disturbs me deeply. Unfortunately, I this is too prevalent. Just ask people to talk about sales people, most of the words have to do with pushy, only care about themselves, liars, deceitful, and the list goes on. The reputation of sales people, in the hierarchy of life is just above pond scum. Perhaps only lawyers hold a lower place in people’s minds. Sales professionals do nothing […]
Who Are We Selling Against?
Who are we selling against? It’s a question I hear as I do deal reviews everyday. I see variants of this in blog posts, LinkedIn questions, and other discussions. I have a problem with that question, because I think, except in one case, it causes us to focus on the wrong things. It diverts us from performing at the highest level, or from developing compelling sales strategies. Most sales people, in answering the question, focus on the competition. It’s important for us to be aware of the alternatives our customers are considering, but the issue of “who we are selling […]
Lean-Mean Selling Machines
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been mulling over ideas on Lean Selling—-no not what you think. Every sales organization I work with is lean—cutbacks have gotten rid of any “fat.” People are busier than ever, managing larger territories, with ever growing quotas, and fewer support resources. I want to focus on lean from different point of view—Lean Selling Processes (yes, it’s tough for me to get off the sales process soapbox). Many of your customers, in fact your own company, may talk a lot about lean in manufacturing, or other functions in the organization, but I think there is […]
Now What Do You Want Me To Sell This Year???
This post originally appeared on January 15 in the Sales Bloggers Union, my colleagues and I were writing about quotas and commission plans. For other posts on this topic, go to Sales Bloggers Union. ____________________________________________________ My colleagues have been quite articulate in talking about a lot of the fundamentals in developing commission and compensation plans. The plan needs to reinforce your strategies and priorities, the behaviors you expect from sales people, and other things. I have been the beneficiary and victim of bad incentive plans, and I have victimized sales people with bad incentive plans. I thought I would tell a […]