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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’ve Got Productivity All Wrong!
The brilliant Matt Heinz provoked me with his post about productivity. As I often do, I went to the dictionary. Some of what I found: When we talk about workplace productivity, we are referring largely to how much work is accomplished in a particular work environment, over a particular period of time. When a business is fully operational and functioning at capacity, productivity should, in theory, be maximized. Productivity is defined as the ratio of output to input. For example, productivity can be measured as the ratio of total output to hours worked. Yield is a measure of land productivity. […]
Selling In Tough Times….
“Tough times demand tougher selling!” That seems to be a mantra many people discuss about selling in a difficult economy. And tougher selling is, sometimes, interpreted of higher activity levels, more outreaches, higher volumes, more and more frequent touches. Some of it focuses on more aggressive messaging. Some of it focuses on strengthening value propositions, finding ways to increase the value customers might realize through a change effort. But buyers are getting tougher too! What they will buy, what they can buy will be very focused. They will not respond to anything that is not mandatory or critical to their […]
What’s “Prompt Engineering” Have To Do With Sales?
Brent Adamson and I were having one of our normal conversations, by which I mean, it wanders all over the place, a good part of this discussion is making each other the victim of our bad jokes, and we go deep on 2-3 issues about selling, thinking about new ideas and approaches. One of the things we were talking about was AI and how it can be used most effectively in selling. Brent had been reading some of my posts, he had been talking to a lot of people and experimenting himself. He said something to the effect, “I just […]
What ChatGPT Teaches Us About How We Sell, It’s Frightening!
Last week, filling idle time one evening, I decided to conduct an experiment with ChatGPT. Earlier in the day, I had been looking at a ChatGPT led training program for sellers. As part of the program design, it suggested it engaging sellers in role plays. I was curious about how that might work, so I decided to experiment. After describing a potential selling situation, I suggested a role play, where ChatGPT was the seller and I was the customer. You can see my adventures with this role play in ChatGPT As A Seller! See ChatGPT Pitch! It was a fun, […]
Our Perspectives Limit What/How We See….
In March, 1976, one of the most famous covers of the New Yorker Magazine appeared. It was Saul Steinberg’s, “View Of The World From 9th Avenue.” It represented “New Yorkers’,” more accurately, a “Manhattanites’” view of the world. The cover was a smash hit, posters were published, I think every office in Manhattan had a framed version. When I moved to Manhattan some time later, I had it on my apartment wall. Parodies of the poster started being published. I remember visiting Silicon Valley, and saw the Silicon Valley version, featuring Page Mill Road and Stanford University. As a proud […]
Why Are You Still Using Your Old Playbooks?
This weekend, late evening, I turned on the TV, paging through the channel guide. I realized, 90% of the content is repeats. The same old (often enjoyable) shows, cycling and recycling. Columbo, Monk, endless NCISs, Law and Order, Family Feud, and on and on. Movies that have repeated endlessly–all the James Bond movies, Dumb and Dumber, Fast Times, the Breakfast Club. All entertaining, but designed for very different times and circumstances–yet we keep going back to the same old things. The world has changed, but we are still doing the stuff we’ve always done–at least in selling. We may have […]