Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
Blog
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
Stupid Twitter (and Social Media) Tricks
Many of you know I’m very enthusiastic about Twitter. I believe it has potential to be a very powerful tool for business professionals. Right now, we are just scratching the surface of potential applications.I’m seeing people use it in very clever ways for competitive and market insight. I read stories of amazing customer service (though one wonders why people had to resort to Twitter to get action and why the normal channels of customer service do not work). Through Twitter, I’ve met people I would never have had the opportunity to reach before. Our twitter relationships have expanded and we […]
Would You Fire Your Top Sales Person?
A good friend (and top sales executive) and I were having an interesting conversation this morning. One of his regional VP’s was having great difficulty with one of the organization’s top sales people. We were talking about what to do about the sales person. The issue was that the sales person was refusing to have anything to do with the company’s CRM system. Despite constant reminders (accompanied with training, etc.) the sales person would not update the CRM system. The sales person would do some nominal updates, but not provide the information expected of each sales person in managing the […]
Are You Still Relevant To Your Customers?
Over the past week, I have had several conversations and a common theme kept coming up: “How do we stay relevant to our customers?” Since the crash of the economy, the projects we were working on, the things we were doing are no longer important to many of our customers. Our customers no longer want to talk to us. I have to admit I’ve struggled a little with this notion — how did we become irrelevant? In a conversation with a great sales executive this morning, it all became crystal clear: We become irrelevant to our customers when we stop […]
Do You Know Your Customer’s Value Proposition? What Are You Doing To Help Them Deliver It?
We know that a clear differentiated value proposition is critical to sales success. Over the past month, I have been writing about various aspects of developing communicating and delivering differentiated value to your customers. I’ll stay on the same theme, but take a slightly different direction. How many sales professionals understand the core value propositions of their customers? Do we know how our customers present their value to their customers and differentiate themselves from their competitors? Most good sales people have a pretty good idea of this. Now, here’s the twist—what do you do to help your customers deliver on […]
Create Value In Every Meeting
A few days ago, a reader contacted me with a great question: “Dave, you always talk about creating value in every meeting with the customer. What do you mean? Is it realistic? How do I get what I need accomplished?” Thanks, for the question and keeping me from being glib. Let me back up a minute. One of the most common issues that comes up when I speak with sales people is, “we can’t get meetings with customers, how can we sell if we can’t get in front of customers?” I see the same issue, sometimes I have difficulty getting […]
Three Questions
Last week, I published a post: First, Let Your Customer Finish Their Sentence, Then Ask Three Questions. In it, I addressed an issue that very experienced sales professionals often have—that is, being so “prepared” to provide solutions that they never give their customers a chance to tell their story. Not only is interrupting offensive to customers, but it presents the opportunity to miss a lot in really understanding what they want and need. I suggested sales people would be better off, letting customer complete their sentences and tell their stories. I also suggested that sales people follow up with three […]