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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
Does Management Really Want The Truth?
I’m a great fan of Michael Wade’s column in US News and World Report. He just published a provocative article: On-Staff Whistleblowers Can Help Companies Prepare for Disaster. The article was interesting, but I found the comment from “Chris of NJ” most interesting.As many businesses see disaster striking all around, Michael suggests that large organizations charge a small number of bright “maverick’s” chartered with the task of identifying potential disasters within organizations, before they strike, bringing them forward to management so they can pre-empt them and act. Interesting idea, I’ve seen some organizations do this with internal resources, and many […]
How To Handle An Established Sales Rep Who Won’t Engage In New Account Development?
Paul Castain raised this issue at LinkedIn. It’s an interesting question. Let me reposition it with a challenge I’ve seen in many organizations. You have a “top sales performer” — they make their numbers, often lead in the numbers, but don’t do a whole number of other things. As Paul raised, they might not spend time bringing in new accounts. they might refuse to do forecasts or update the CRM system, they might overspend on expenses, they might sell only a few products and refuse to sell the broad portfolio of products they are expected to sell. There can be […]
Sales Manager: Stop Wasting Your Time On Coaching Meetings!
I get complaints from both sales people and managers on the topic of coaching. Sales people don’t feel they are getting the coaching they need—their managers don’t have time. Managers, don’t feel they are providing the coaching they should—they don’t have time (and they don’t know how to–but that’s another post). Somehow, people have the notion that coaching is something that you do differently, it’s kind of like the performance review, a specific coaching session or meeting is scheduled and the manager has to devote a certain amount of time to the “coaching meeting.” The reality is the meetings are […]
As A Sales Manager, What Would Your Top 3 Activities Be?
David Batup raised an interesting question on the Sales Best Practices group in LinkedIn. He posed the question: As a sales manager, what would your top 3 activities be?” I couldn’t limit myself to 3, but my response is below: “Nice question: Strategically: 1. Make certain you have a strong sales process in place, everyone understands why it’s important, and how to use it in managing their own territories and activities. Make sure you have the right tools in place to support the effective execution of the strategies and processes. Make sure your people understand how to use them.2. Clear […]
Why Do Sales People Have Such A Bad Reputation?
It’s Friday evening, I’m cruising some of the blogs and other forums as I wind up the day. I saw a question posed on the Sales Best Practices board in LinkedIn. The question concerned the Reputation of Sales, asking about why do we see such bad stereotypes of sales people — lazy, unprofessional, etc. It went on to ask why people don’t like sales people. For those of you that are regular readers, you probably know that was all that was needed to set me back on my soapbox. Here’s my response: “I’ve been a proud sales professional for all […]
No Grin-F#!?ing Allowed!
Well, I’ve got your attention with the implied profanity! Sorry about that, but we all know what I mean. We’ve all seen it, experienced it, even actively participated in it. We all know what is happening. Think of the endless meetings we have, whether they are internal meetings, with customers, suppliers, and others. Everyone presents a polite face. There is an air of “superficial congeniality,” seeming agreement, then the meeting ends and everyone goes off and does what they intended anyway. It may be a passive aggressiveness, it may be an avoidance to confront and openly discuss the tough issues. […]