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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
Mailing It In! Bad Sales Performance
Linda Richardson has a nice article on EyeOnSales, “Discussing Vs. Sending Price.”She covers the topic very well, I won’t repeat it. I am constantly amazed, however, about the number of sales people that are too busy or too rushed or too sloppy to present their solutions, pricing, and value to customers.It’s never the customer’s responsibility to figure out what value they will get from a solution and to develop the ROI themselves.It’s the obligation of the sales professional to demonstrate and prove the value of their solution to the customer. Not doing this is not only sloppy and unprofessional, but […]
Corporate Culture Trumps Everything
There is a great article at IMD’s site on “An Unpopular Corporate Culture.” It’s a must read. I think many people underestimate the importance of corporate culture in executing strategies and driving change. Culture is one of those “soft” things—it’s hard to define specifically, it’s hard to develop specific action, worse yet it involves connecting with people in a genuine fashion. It’s so much easier to deal with the “harder” issues like developing strategies, executing programs and action plans, and so forth. Having been involved in a number of turnaround situations and clients facing major challenges, culture can trump everything. […]
Seven Ways To Fail Big
I’m still rolling the conclusions of Paul Carroll’s and Chunka Mui’s HBR article: Seven Ways To Fail Big, around in my mind. The article is very interesting, based on research they have done on 750 business failures. They claim that nearly half could have been avoided (not surprising), and that the avoidable failures were primarily the result of flawed business strategies, not poor execution (somewhat surprising). They summarize seven key reasons: The Synergy Mirage, Faulty Financial Engineering, Stubbornly Staying The Course, Pseudo-Adjacency’s, Bets On The Wrong Technology, Rushing To Consolidate, Roll-ups Of Almost Any Kind. Each reason is accompanied with […]
Letting Form Triumph Over Substance
John Gardner book, EXCELLENCE, published in 1961 is an inspirational book. One line in the book has always stuck with me: “Do not let form triumph over substance.” It’s a constant reminder to me, and refocuses me, particularly when I get caught into motions and activity. I sometimes get discouraged, I see so much effort going into form: Saying the right words, writing the proper letter/email, having the right action plan/project plan, doing the right meetings, having the right appearance. On the surface, everything is polished, professional, things look fantastic. Dig a little bit, and you find nothing behind it. […]
Why Manager’s Don’t Do People Management
I’m a great fan of Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership Blog. This week, he posted a great article entitled “Why Managers Don’t Do People Management.” Coincidentally, I have been reading several articles and market reports about the tremendous growth in the “Coaching” business. These with Wally’s article lead to some real concerns. In our experience, managers are not spending the right amount of time in “people management,” that is coaching, mentoring, developing, and managing performance. Wally cites a study that would indicate 58% of the people responding would believe that managers are not devoting sufficient time to people management. Wally […]
Saving The Lives Of Malnourished Children
I believe in and support the work of Doctors Without Borders. Today, I received an email, asking to support their winning a $1.5 Million grant from American Express. The process is easy and doesn’t cost you anything other than your time and a vote. Follow the link: Saving The Lives Of Malnourished Children. Follow the instructions and vote for their project! I started this blog on making a difference. Most of the time, I focus on business issues. This is a simple way that each of us can have a profound impact on the lives of children around the world. […]