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
Top Sales Experts Interview
It was a great privilege to be interviewed by Maureen Blandford the other day for Top Sales Experts TSE Dailies.Maureen and I spent some time discussing the challenges sales professionals have in this economy and changes that are needed to drive success, both now and in the recovery.Take a few minutes to listen, I’d appreciate your feedback and comments!
Akamai Has It Right! Engage Customers In A Different Conversation
I’ve been fascinated by Paul Sagan’s interview in Network World. I’ve written many times about how sales people need to go to customers and ask “How can we help?” We need to engage customers in a different conversation. Akamai is engaging it’s customers in these new conversations. Sagan “want his sales team to spend more time with customers.” They are continuing to be aggressive in finding new business, but the have also “upped the expectation for how often we’re going to touch the customer and talk to them…..understand what’s going on in their business, what’s their pain point and can […]
Moving Beyond Selling To Building Collaborative Relationships
I’m reading Price Waterhouse Coopers 12th Annual Global CEO Survey. It has a lot of good information and I encourage you to read it. One issue that leaped out was the importance in the CEO’s minds about the importance of building more collaborative strategies. Some interesting data points: 57% of the CEO’s agree or agreed strongly that collaborative business networks would be a defining organizational principle for business. 71% believed collaborative relationships are critical with customers and clients. About 40% believed collaborative relationships with supply chain partners was critical. (This is a disconcerting issue I will talk about later.) We’ve […]
Getting Caught In A Lie — Why Do Sales People Do This?
I’m sitting in my office doing some work and the phone rings. In answering, some salesperson—doesn’t introduce herself asks for (let me call him) Mr. Smith. I’m taken aback(You’ll see why later), I respond, “Mr. Smith isn’t available, my name is Dave Brock, I’m the president of the company, who am I speaking with and can I help you?” She responds with her name and company—actually a fairly well known trade services organization, “No we are really trying to reach Mr. Smith. We spoke to him a couple of months ago about buying some of our services. He asked us […]
Is Everyone In The Same Boat, Rowing In The Same Direction?
So we’ve completed all the layoff’s, we’ve re adjusted our strategies to recognize the new realities of the global economy, and we are rushing forward at 200 mph to drive business. All of a sudden, confusion, crises, and miscommunication dominates our waking moments. Who does what, to whom? What are our priorities? What about the things that Jill used to do, but she’s gone? I thought this was my job, but now you’re telling me something different? You’re asking me to do the work of all the people you just laid off—I can’t cope! Too often, we are seeing this […]
When All Else Is Equal, How Do You Differentiate Yourself
This morning, I had an interesting discussion with a client. He was talking about a specific sales situation. Basically, he said that customers were saying there was no differentiation between the products and services his company offered, versus the competitors. He went on to say, they are seeing this response in more and more sales situations. He was at a loss to deal with it — or at least wanted to avoid the ultimate differentiator — at least in this situation — pricing. I thought I’d throw this issue out there for your ideas and thoughts. I’ll provide a few […]