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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
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 […]
The Illusion Of A Shortcut
It seems to be human nature to constantly search for shortcuts–or hacks. I’m constantly looking for shortcuts. I explore, “How can I get this done in less time? How can I create this outcome with less work?” A favorite book from years ago was Tim Ferris, “The 4 Day Workweek,” was filled with ideas and shortcuts for all sorts of things. Our social feeds are filled with “experts” offering shortcuts, which we devour, often, implementing blindly. And, too often, these shortcuts fail. They may work for a short time, but they become less effective and we search for another shortcut. […]
ChatGPT As A Seller! See ChatGPT Pitch!
Warning: There is no redeeming value to this post. Call it Friday musing or Fun and Games with AI. It does provide a warning for many of us blindly jumping on the ChatGPT bandwagon, it does make many very obvious errors and struggles to understand them. I continue to discover new things to challenge ChatGPT with. I’m working on an interactive self study program for sellers to actually use ChatGPT in developing their own business acumen skills. My thinking is, rather than developing a conventional training program, I want to create a challenge for the participants. I will create a […]
Connections Or Connection?
Daily, I get connection requests from all sorts of people. There are those that promise to bring us 100s of qualified leads if we connect, then buy. There are those that say we have common businesses and interests, but nothing in their profile shows me where that commonality is–and they have never bothered to look at my profile. And there are a lot of genuine connection requests with intriguing people. With many pundits, “Connections” seem to be a bragging right, something akin to, “Mine is bigger than yours….” or “The more the merrier….” What seems to be missing in the […]
Settling….
I have to confess my lack of patience with an attitude I see permeating much of our world today. Recently, I find myself having more conversations with colleagues similarly impatient. We are disappointed, we struggle to understand what we see going on–particularly in much of business and selling. We wonder, “Do we have unrealistic expectations? Have things changed that substantially since we started (some, thought not all of us have been around the block more than a few times)? What’s happening, why? Ultimately, we get to the question, “Is that just the way things are…….” And we choose not to […]