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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
We Need To Think About Retention Differently!
We all know customer retention is important. Creating great customer experiences, making sure we deliver on our commitments, keeping them happy are critical. We are all familiar with the “bow tie” chart, showing the importance of not only retaining, but growing and upselling. And most of the strategies seem built around customer retention. But are all of these enough? The problem with most of our retention strategies is we become the status quo! Remember when you were first chasing the deal. The customer wanted to change. Or possibly, we incited them to think differently. But the status quo became unacceptable, […]
“I Can Do It Better Myself!”
One of the biggest mistakes I see sales managers, particularly new managers, make is the view, “I can do it better myself!” It’s easy to understand this. They were probably top performers as sellers. They probably have deep experience and great capability. That’s part of the reason they’ve been moved into a leadership role. Many sales leaders behave as though they have a big “S” painted on their chests. They swoop in, most of the time uninvited, taking over a deal. The rationale is, “We need to win the deal, we need to hit our goals, I can do it […]
“When All You Have Is A Hammer……”
I’ve been reading about comp plans for sellers. They are a huge challenge. A recent report cited: 97%* of leaders think there are challenges with their comp plans. 91% of organizations failed to hit goal, yet only 31% of them felt the quotas were unrealistic. 78% find their comp plans difficult to understand. And only 1% of RevOps and 12% of Finance leaders believe comp plans are aligned with overall company goals. Yet despite all of this, the primary lever managers use to drive performance is comp–and I suspect that’s why we see the data above. I have to confess, […]
How Well Do You Know Your Customer?
I was meeting with a group of sellers, talking about engaging their customers. I asked the question, “Who are the people, at your customers, most important to your ability to sell something? They cited a number of people, “CIOs are usually the key people involved in a project. Also, IT project managers, systems engineering managers, business analysts. Then there are the finance people, the controller, and CFO…..” I probed further, “What does a CIO do?” Quickly a response came, “They are responsible for managing the IT organization and delivering IT services in the company….” Then I asked, “What is it […]
“Why Do You Care So Much?”
This post is primarily written for me. It’s for me to explore my thinking and to get greater clarity. Normally, I would not publish something so introspective, but I think I’m asking for help. I’d really appreciate your feedback and ideas. It’s been something that’s been bothering me for some time, but I haven’t been able to articulate it. Regular readers know I go through alternating phases of being very optimistic about the future of our profession and the hope that I carry for the impact we can have with our customers, our companies, our peers, and our communities. At […]
Understanding Our Customers
Last week, I had the privilege of speaking with Howard Dover’s Digital Prospecting Class at UTD. I had no prepared materials, it was a Q&A about how to connect with prospects more effectively. It was such a fun conversation, we focused on how we increase our effectiveness and impact through deeper understanding of our customers/prospects. Sam Coit summed it up well with the comment, “Understanding how different roles think and feel allows us to better cater our approach and offer the most possible value.” The class is changing their prospecting approach, focusing first on understanding their prospects–not talking at all […]