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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
The Kindness Of Friends—And Strangers
Two weeks ago today, I was getting ready to go to the East Coast for business. Just as I was about to leave to catch a red-eye, my wife called me, “There’s really a weird cloud outside.” It was smoke, from a large fire. I went to the back yard and looked North—about 4 miles away, all I could see was the entire ridge-line on fire. Flames looked to be leaping 20-30 feet in the air.We were in no danger, I made the trip, though I checked on conditions every couple of hours for the whole week. It that time, […]
The Karmic Capitalist: Should I Wait Until I’m Rich To Give Back—From Tim Ferriss’ Blog
I like the way Tim Ferriss thinks! Sometimes you have to take what he says with a few grains of salt, but in general I like what he thinks—-and what he seems to do.He is really on target with this blog post, I encourage everyone to read it. Beyond that, I encourage everyone to support what he seeks to do with his LitLiberation Project. If that project doesn’t meet you objectives find one–invest your time and money to make a difference.Kudo’s to Tim for his efforts (though my praise and a couple of $’s will get you a cup of […]
If All Else Is Equal, Price Wins!
Duuuugh! What a great observation on the obvious—“If all else is equal, price wins!” You must be asking, “Dave, is that what your clients pay you for?” Actually, they do. I am constantly surprised at how complicated people can make around the concept of creating value—for your customers, partners, stakeholders, others. Millions of dollars are spent on consultants every year, hundreds of pages in books, magazines, and journals. Everyone is looking for the silver bullet in maintaining their pricing or margins for customers, how to minimize discounting, and other similar issues. It is so simple—-if the customer cannot perceive any […]
Both Sides Of The Story
We’ve all heard it, there are always two sides to every issue or story. It’s a natural tendency to look at things from our own perspective and self interest. Sometimes it causes us to make mistakes. We really need to look at things from each person’s point of view. It makes us more effective. I could go on and write a lot of stuff about this, but I just saw Mike Hyatt’s blog on the issue. He has addressed it very well, so let me direct you to his blog. http://www.michaelhyatt.com/fromwhereisit/2007/09/both-sides-of-t.html
Focus Until It Hurts! Then Focus More!
Most of the organizations I encounter have one common challenge—-focusing. In the past week, I have been involved in projects with 4 companies—2 Fortune 50 companies, a large company, and a very early stage start up. All had exactly the same problem: They had not identified and committed to executing the 1-2 things critical to accomplishing their goals. As a result, each was failing to achieve their goals. Consistently, failure to focus is the biggest issue I see confronting organizations and people. This got me to thinking, why is it so tough? Some thoughts: Focus is boring: It is so […]
No "A’s For Effort"
Kids are headed back to school—-it’s caused me to reflect on comments we hear from teachers, parents, and friend—“A for Effort.” That term has slipped into our vocabularies and we apply it to all sorts of business and personal situations. I suppose it’s an attempt to justify failure to achieve results. It seems much of what is done, even rewarded today focuses on effort, not results or accountability. People are very busy, work incredibly long hours, load their agendas up with meetings, lots of activity, and overlay that with constant interruptions of Blackberry’s, mobile phones and emails. Somehow “busyness” has […]