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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
Performance Plans And Performance Planning
Perhaps I’ve not been paying attention. Recently, in conversations with clients and other groups, I’ve been stunned at how few have performance plans in place for their people. Having been raised in organizations that valued performance planning, I had assumed these were common place. Starting my selling career in IBM, we all had them. Much later, when IBM was a customer, in calling on people, I would always ask, “Open your lower right hand drawer and pull out the first folder. I’d like to look at your performance plan….” (We all seemed to keep them in the same place.) Knowing […]
“Short Cuts” Seldom Proove To Be Short!
I suspect it’s human nature to constantly be in search of short cuts. We want to get a desired outcome without doing all the work one would normally have to do to achieve that outcome. I continue to imagine, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could achieve my desired level of fitness, without having to go to the gym for an hour every day! Imagine how I could waste that time doing something else….” Or, I tend to be an impatient driver. I always “know” the fastest rout to an unknown destination, consequently I ignore my Nav System. I appreciate […]
Is The “Buyer Journey” Even A Thing Anymore?
Ever since I started selling–you know back in the old days when phones were still attached to cords–I’ve been taught, “Buyers have a structured buying process.” I’d see all sorts of block diagrams, showing how the buying process always, coincidentally, aligned with the customer buying process. On the selling side we would have perfectly structured steps like Qualification, Needs Identification, Solution Presentation, Closing. These would, through some magic, always align with the customers’ very structured process, Problem Definition, Needs Definition, Evaluate Alternatives, Select/Buy A Solution. The idea that sellers and buyers could be in perfect synchronization throughout the process, marching […]
We Could Be Doing So Much More….
Sometimes our success limits our thinking about what we could be achieving. We think we are doing well, but we really should be doing so much more. I’ve written, often, about how we “settle” for win rates of 15-20% and are happy achieving our growth goals. While these organizations are hitting their targets, and sometimes with aggressive YoY scaling, they should be doing so much more! They could easily double revenue by doubling win rates to a mediocre 30-40%. Yet too many just keep doing what they have always done, failing to achieve their real potential. They seldom consider, “What […]
“There’s Room For Humanity In Business…”
One of my favorite things to do on Friday mornings is to listen to Matt Heinz and Brent Adamson’s “Coffee with Brent/Matt.” If you aren’t watching it, you should. It’s huge fun–and every once in a while they get onto some really interesting issues. Brent made a comment, “There’s room for humanity in business…..” It struck me oddly, my initial reaction was, “Well duhhhh! Thanks for the insight, Brent.” (One of my missions in life is to harass Brent, and he, gleefully, reciprocates.). But on reflection, I realized that his observation is an indication of how “we”–all of us, have […]
“I Don’t Have The Time To Coach!!”
I spend a lot of time with sales managers, at all levels. Too often, I hear the lament, “I don’t have the time to coach!” I ask to look at their calendars. As you might expect, the calendars are packed with meeting after meeting–on all sorts of things. Endless forecast and pipeline discussions–usually between managers and not with people. Endless discussion on “the numbers” and the challenges of achieving them. Sometimes, task forces to address these challenges. We see them leading team meetings, but usually these are fairly one way discussions, “You aren’t hitting the numbers, you need to do […]