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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 Evolving Role Of The Sales Professional—The Sales Person As Diagnostician
We all know the role of sales professionals is changing. The sales person used to be an important channel to educating and informing customers about products and services. The wide availability of information on the internet changes this–though it doesn’t eliminate this. Most customers are more informed about products and services. They do their homework, searching the internet, leveraging the opinions of others to select a few alternatives they will consider. What does this mean for sales professionals and their evolving role? Lately, there have been lots of articles, some contributed by yours truly, about Provocative Selling, improving questioning, creating […]
What Does Carpentry Have To Do With Sales?
I’m an unabashed Do It Yourself-er. I think a large part of it is that I love tools and hanging around hardware stores. My workshop (that’s what I call that space in my garage) is filled with all sorts of tools. When I was in college, I started buying tools. That’s when we were into Carpentry 1.0. I’d buy the best quality chisels I could find. I’d buy hammers, saws, levels, everything. Part of the reason I bought great quality hand tools, is that I worked my way through college as a carpenter. I learned that good tools, well maintained […]
We Want Your Feedback!
Yesterday, I got an email from a service provider for a Sales 2.0 tool that I rely on for much of our communication with our clients and prospects. After the typical friendly greeting, I focused on the following: “…we know what great things customer feedback can do for a small business like yours. That’s why we offer an easy-to-use, highly affordable online survey tool. In fact, we believe gathering feedback is so important, we’re reaching out to gather your thoughts – so that we can continue to bring you the products, services and support you need to succeed.” I knew […]
What’s The Worst Objection?
I was reading a blog post the other day, it posed the question: “What’s the worst objection?” There were a lot of interesting responses and amusing war stories, but I was surprised that one, the one I think is most significant, was not raised. To my mind, the worst objection is the objection (or issue or concern) that is never asked. Too often, I think this may be why we lose sales, we have created an environment where the customer has not raised a key concern or objection. Objections are great, they create a forum for discussion. They demonstrate the […]
The Role Of Partnerships And Strategic Alliances With Customers And Suppliers
FREE PROMOTIONAL OFFER Through September 25, 2009, See The End Of The Post! In May-June of 2009, Partners In EXCELLENCE conducted a market research survey to learn more about the importance of Strategic Alliances and Partnerships With Customers and Suppliers. We conducted this study after seeing some disturbing trends reported in the PWC 12th Annual Global CEO Survey. In that survey, one of the issues the CEO’s identified as a priority was building stronger strategies around collaboration. There were a few interesting data points in the PWC Survey: 57% of the CEO’s agreed or agreed strongly that collaborative business networks […]
What If We Can’t Find Compelling Value For Our Solutions?
I was reading Rebel Brown’s great post: Accentuate The Positive. It focuses on positive messages and approaches in sales and marketing. She raised an interesting question, What if we can’t find a compelling value-based approach for our solutions? The question is scary, but fascinating. I think it impacts many of us, whether in a specific sales opportunity, or in marketing and product programs. It’ something we’re afraid to confront with ourselves, our managers, our companies. The current economy makes this issue all too visible. A month ago, I was having a conversation with a senior sales executive with a very large company. […]