Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
Sales Performance
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle
Results are about performance. Sustained great results is about maximizing performance over time. The foundation to great performance lies in purpose, culture, values, and leadership. Performing well s developing the right strategies, the right organizational structures, putting the right talent in place, identifying the right processes, programs, systems, tools and metrics. Finally, it is about consistent execution. It’s about organizational and individual habit formation.
We work with clients in all aspects of maximizing performance. Whether it is developing strategies, recommending programs, putting the right structures and talent in place. Developing and implementing the right processes, systems and tools.
It may involve assessing current capabilities, both organizational and individual. Or assessing market and industry changes, developing recommendations for responding to those changes.
Finally, it’s about consistent execution. Training people in what needs to be done and best practices in doing these things. Measuring progress, putting corrective actions in place.
We are a collection of operations focused executives, working with our clients in developing their strategies, putting everything in place to implement those strategies, developing and supporting the change management efforts, supporting and refining the execution, then continuing to refine these to drive constant improvement.
Our goal is to help individuals and organizations to OutPeform their competition.
Sales Performance Posts
When Performance Problems Aren’t Obvious—Yet!
Preface: This is much longer than my usual posts, but this is such an important issue–and success tends to hide it. I was talking with a CEO recently. Her company was hitting plan. Customer retention was solid. The team seemed engaged. By every measure that matters, things were working. “So what’s the problem?” I asked. […]
Why Benchmarking Fails
Benchmarking other organizations, identifying best practices has been a cornerstone of business strategy for decades. It gives us the opportunity to study how others get things done, to learn, and to adapt what we’ve learned into our own organizations. We benchmark our competitors, their strategies, and products. Or we look at the very high performing […]
Protect Your Focus!
Tobia La Marca said something fascinating a few weeks ago (he says a lot of fascinating things). A sentence stood out: “Protect Your Focus.” It’s particularly ironic that at this moment, I’m jumping between writing this article, looking at an email that just arrived, thinking about a meeting in an hour, and seeing alerts creeping […]
Customer Service Or Lip Service?
We know, or at least I thought we did, the importance of customer service and their experience. It’s critical in so many ways. Go to company’s website. All of them proclaim, “the customer is first, customer experience is our number one priority, we are here to serve our customers, we value our relationships with our […]
Sale Excellence, Where Do You Start?
Since releasing Is ‘Good Enough’ Good Enough, I keep hearing the same question: “Where do I start?” I get it. The book lays out seven mindsets and behaviors for moving from mediocrity to excellence: Curiosity, Purpose, Accountability, Learning, Customer-Centricity, Embracing Change, and Discipline. It is overwhelming! It’s like being confronted with a map of the […]
What Are You Willing To Struggle For?
Ask any salesperson if they want to hit the President’s Club, make more money, and build a strong career they are proud of. Everyone will immediately respond, “Of course! I want to be the top performer!” Nobody wants to be mediocre, but why do so many settle for it? Stated differently, we settle for mediocrity […]
Why Do We Invest So Heavily In Losing?
Yes, we are almost at 2025 year-end. I suspect many are rushing to close those last few deals, hopefully making the number. But as we start looking at the New Year, I wanted to pose a question, something to think about as you start looking to the New Year and chasing a new set of […]
Walking The Talk, Why I Refused To Settle…
It is easy to write about high performance; it is much harder to live it when things go wrong. I set a hard commitment to publish my new book. Is “Good Enough” Good Enough, this past Wednesday. But as the date approached, I realized I was staring at a 250-page unformatted manuscript and I was […]
“A Tale Of Two Sellers…”
Recently, I did a deep dive into the performance of two sellers at one of my clients. The client and I wanted to understand exactly what drove the performance differences between them. On the surface, they looked identical. They had similar backgrounds and experience levels. Their territories were nearly the same, mostly focused on new […]
I Can Tell You The Quality Of A Sales Organization Just By……
My good friend, Keenan, started a fascinating conversation on LinkedIn. His post was a simple picture. I made a comment, “Keenan, I’ll see you and raise you, I can tell the quality of the organization by sitting in on one team pipeline or forecast review 😁” Mark Hunter added, “David Brock Drop the mic and […]
Performance Quotes
““Dave helped us translate our strategic planning process from an annual exercise into the development of a plan the whole organization could get behind and execute. With Dave's support, the team came together and established a clear focus and priorities. The team felt the process was valuable in developing a pragmatic plan, focused on executing those things most critical to achieving the objectives our leadership team had established. Finally, the process established a solid framework for future strategic plans. Dave not only delivered on his commitments but delivered more than was expected.” Vice President Strategy and Planning
“I got a recommendation from a business colleague to reach out to Dave regarding our sales process for our startup. So I did and shot out an email where I asked for some tips on how to better leverage our sales process. Dave responded the same day where he asked if we could hop on a call, and of course, I was a bit amazed at his willingness to go head-on with our current challenges. During our conversations, I told him about a recent deal that had stalled and asked if he had any advice on how to get in a better position moving forward. He gave me some good advice and I also got two action points I could execute immediately. The following day I had a client meeting where I held a presentation and I took one of the action points into that meeting. After the presentation was completed I got the deal, and the client highlighted the expertise we had shown with our offer. Dave’s recommendation was perhaps the one thing I felt was the game changer from what we had done in the past.” Eivind Jonassen, Cofounder and CEO
“As a result of the program on Value Propositions, we have turned around and closed sales of more than $60 million within 45 days of implementing the principles you taught us.” Senior Vice President of Global Sales
“We brought David into our company to help us with our sales and go-to market strategies. His thoughtful and systematic approach exposed areas for improvement which resulted with an improved plan. All our employees benefited, especially when each of our team members shared their knowledge and practical experience across our group. We ended up a stronger, more cohesive and focused team due to David's leadership.” Ray Connelly, Vice President of Supplier Strategy
"Partners In EXCELLENCE differentiate themselves from other consulting firms we've used by providing practical implementable deliverables and then providing support and guidance during execution. Most consultants use a canned, one-size-fits-all methodology…. Because Dave Brock has real world experience in sales, marketing and management, his recommendations are tailored to his client's environment and are readily implemented." Vice President, Marketing
“In the past couple of years David has been a critical mentor, coach and partner to me. Throughout our engagements we together developed the Sales Execution Framework (SEF) which has been foundational for the continuous personal and professional development of my team, especially in the areas sales process mechanics, sales process, sales methodology and our operating system. Hands down this is the main reason why we realized high double digit profitable growth in the past couple of years and are confident we can sustain that in the years to come" Rene Voorhorst, Senior Head Global Account Management