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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
Visible Leadership Every Day
Wally Bock had a great posting in his Three Star Leadership Blog yesterday. Incorporating habits into what you do everyday is critical to developing the organization. Some highlights: Everyday, you need to make your expectations clear.Everyday, you need to check for understanding.Everyday, you need to use every contact and an opportunity to improve team performance and morale.Coach team members.Encourage good behavior and honest effort.Correct what needs correcting.Counsel those who need it.Everyday, you need to do the hard work of weeding out the unfit and the unwilling. Great thoughts, tough to practice, but they make the difference between managing and leading.
10 Step Program To Becoming A Better Listener
Listening–seems easy, we take it for granted, yet spend more time talking than really listening. I just read a nice blog that offered a good reminder of critical listening skills. This posting cam from “Dumb Little Man-Tips For Life,” it is worthwhile reading. Here is the summary, but read the post: Be legitimately interested. Avoid planning counterarguments. Be honest about your time. Accept the speaker’s point of view. Use body language, eye contact and repetition. Go beyond words. Get rid of distractions. Be aware of your history with the speaker. Ask questions. Watch and learn from the “good listener.” Listening—it’s […]
Why Multitasking Only Works To A Point
I’ve written before about the perils of multitasking and will continue to rant on this topic. I’m at fault for multitasking too much—I do emails on conference calls, update my calendar during web conferences, and manage to focus on watching the news rather than listening to my wife in the evenings. Somehow multitasking has become the test of how important or how busy we are. I’ve been convinced that productivity and quality of results actually declines the more we multitask. Most of my evidence, however, has been anecdotal, or personal. (Sure I can quote accident figures about people talking on […]
Focus On Your Customer’s Need To Buy! Getting Personal With Your Customer.
We have spent years getting sales professionals and organizations trying to become more customer focused. About 10 years ago, I published an article, Focus On Your Customer’s Need To Buy, Not Your Need To Sell. To be successful in selling, sales professionals and organizations need to get personal with their customers. It is important to talk to your customer–not the organization, but the individuals involved in buying your products. We need to get beyond the surface needs and obvious requirements. The sales literature is filled with stuff about “identifying the customer pain points.” As Adele Revella cites in her Buyer […]
In Praise Of The Checklist
Fast Company has an interesting short article, Heroic Checklist, that is a worthwhile read. I’m a tremendous fan of checklists, though in our consulting practice we find too many people resist them as either too structured or too simplistic. Checklists are great, there greatness lies in their simplicity: They help keep us disiciplined and focused. They make sure, that in the rush of everyday activity, we don’t overlook critical items/activities. They free us up to identify and focus on the most critical issues. They help us be more effective. They free us up to be more creative and innovative. They […]
Improving Our Communications
I’ve been seeing a lot about “problems in communicating.” Newspapers and TV are filled with stories about “communications problems.” As I speak with business executives around the world, much of the dicussion is rooted in communications problems. Even my wife complains, “you don’t listen!” — It’s true—and I think most husbands probably get this same complaint—but that’s a different issue. A lot of the materials I see about “improving communications skills” are oriented around presenttion and speaking skills. Something struck me about the things I read and, in fact, a lot of the conversations I have been invovled in that […]