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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
Am I Ready For This Meeting?
We spend a huge amount of time getting customers to accept a request for a meeting. Customers are busy. They have an aversion, even a preference, not to talk to sellers. They worry about wasting their time. On our side, we are incredibly busy. We are juggling all sorts of balls, prospecting, managing qualified opportunities in our pipelines, making sure our current customers are happy, doing the endless amount of internal reporting our managers seem to want us to do. The few meetings we can actually get are important and we want to accomplish as much as we can. Recently, […]
Getting What We Want…..
We want to achieve our goals—make quota, get the bonus, get the promotion, get the recognition. We want people to act/behave in a certain way. We want to work for a certain company or in a certain role. We want customers to respond to our outreach, to buy our products. The problem with getting what we want is that we are usually dependent on those we work with getting what they want/need. We can’t get the order until the customer determines they must change, they must do things differently. The toughest part of buying is not solutions selection, but it’s […]
“I’m Trying To Think, But Nothing Happens…..”
OK, I confess, every once in a while, when I need to do something completely mindless, I go to YouTube, watching a 3 Stooges clip. There was one scene that played in dozens of variations, it’s a frustrated Curly saying, “I’m trying to think, but nothing happens…..” Too often, in the spirit of improving efficiency and productivity, we seek to eliminate critical thinking and analysis from the work sellers do. We have tools that provide us with research about individuals and organizations. They provide endless amounts of data, we can leverage in our engagement efforts. These tools generate insights, content, […]
Late To The Party……
Have you ever been late to a party? It’s always, at least for me, a little difficult. Arriving late to a party has all sorts of downsides. Probably, to some degree, the hosts are a little disappointed. Perhaps they feel a little disrespect because you didn’t arrive close to the time noted on the invitation. They don’t hold the start of the party until you arrive, they get the party started when they want, with whoever is there. Arriving late to the party has lots of other downsides. Much of the food, particularly the most popular dishes are gone. You […]
Digital Buying Intermediaries….
We’ve seen a shift in customer buying behaviors over the years. Sales used to be the primary purveyors if information about products, solutions, market changes, trends. Customers couldn’t easily get that information (perhaps trade shows/publications and conferences), so sellers provided that function for buyers. As the web exploded, digital content, search and other digital capabilities enabled buyers to educate themselves through these channels, reducing the need for sales people performing that function. Social platforms extended that capability where buyers could easily learn from each other, sharing information, experiences, and getting insights. Sellers participate in those platforms, using them, with varying […]
Basic Principles Endure…..
The only constant is change—-everything about selling has changed and will continue to change. How we engage our customers, our processes, methodologies, tools, systems, programs continue to change. Technologies accelerate the rate of change, also providing us insights and capabilities we have never imagined. And, in the coming years, we will see technologies like AI and others that will provide new capabilities. Despite all these changes, the fundamental principles of selling remain constant. I tend to think of roughly 4 fundamental principles underlying everything in selling. When we lose sight of them, we struggle, our performance suffers. The four principles […]