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
Your Dashboards Are Useless, What Are Your 5 KPI’s?
As typical, I was sitting with a leadership team reviewing their performance. The RevOps exec, displayed the organization’s performance dashboard. We’ve all seen them, all sorts of graphics with dials, red lights, row after row of numbers. I counted, this dashboard was tracking over 30 items. There was lots of discussion about various numbers, usually […]
“It’s Not A Numbers Game, It’s A Human Game!”
Anyone entering into selling immediately sees the obsession we have with numbers. We are focused on hitting our revenue goals, not just by the end of the year, but quarterly and monthly. Recognizing revenue is a trailing metric, we become obsessed with things that tell us whether we will achieve those goals. We become obsessed […]
Doing Our People’s Jobs……
One of the biggest mistakes I see too many managers make, is they dive in and start doing their people’s jobs. The motivations for this range from being well intended to malicious. We have all seen the managers believing they are the best sales people in the world, sweeping their people aside, playing “Superseller” in […]
Coaching Our Customers
I recently wrote an updated version of “What Is Coaching?” In it, I focused on how leaders coach and develop their people. At the end of the article, I had and Afterword, suggesting the same principles used in high impact coaching within our own organizations should be applied in working with our customers. I want […]
What Is Coaching?
It seems the word “Coaching” has become one of those fashionable words, permeating every discussion. Go back 15 or more years, and we barely saw the word coaching. Today, we find coaching applying to about everything we do, both in business and in our personal lives. We see Executive Coaching, Career Coaching, Life Coaching, Performance […]
The SKO Speech I’d Like To Deliver
I do a good number of Sales Kickoff speeches I don’t give many speeches to general audiences or at conferences. Most of the time, my speaking is at the SKO of a client, with whom we’ve been working on key change initiatives. The speech is very focused and directed to each person’s role in executing […]
What If Our Sellers Had More Autonomy?
Reading a fascinating article in the NYTimes, Giving Kids Some Autonomy Has Surprising Results, got me thinking. What if we give our people more autonomy in how they manage their deals, days, what they do? In the past 5-7 years, we’ve seen a movement to be completely prescriptive with our people and their activities. We […]
Minimum Viable Metrics
One of the key strategies for very early stage companies, for new product developers, or lean practitioners, is the concept of the “Minimum Viable Product.” It’s a very customer centric approach in launching new products. It seeks to minimize the risk to the company by introducing a product with just enough functionality to gain interest, […]
Achievement, Trying Hard, Participation, Apathy…..
Adam Grant posted an editorial in the NY Times, No, You Don’t Get An A For Effort. It’s fascinating, but only focuses on part of what I see in too many organizations. As we go into the New Year, perhaps it’s useful to look at these and reflect on what we might want to change […]
A (Not So) Comedy Of Errors….
I have spent several hours in the past few days apologizing to any number of customer service agents. Every time I am directed to speak to another agent (apparently going up the food chain in escalating problems), I have restated the same words, “I’m so sorry that I’m frustrated and angry! It’s not your fault, […]
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