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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
“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 […]
When Will We Learn? Or Do We Even Care?
This morning, I was greeted with a couple of things. One is the norm, I get inundated with mindless prospecting emails every day. Usually a couple of dozen make it through my spam filters, There are dozens in the spam buckets. I scroll through those quickly, spamming each of those. But I know tomorrow, dozens more will find their way into my inbox. Then I saw a post in LinkedIn, it highlighted some data (let’s assume it’s true). It suggests there are close to 360 Billion emails sent every day! Doing some quick search, I find there are 4-5 billion […]
“How Will You Be Making A Decision On This….”
Recently, working with a client, we were talking about a major change initiative. I asked the question, “How will you be making a decision on how do implement this initiative?” There was an awkward silence, the CEO eventually said, “I don’t know…… What should I be doing? What should I be looking at? Who should I be involving in the decision?… ” She reeled off a number of questions and concerns all around making decisions on this initiative. While we were working on a specific project and talking about a major transformation initiative, all of a sudden it struck me […]