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
We Don’t Start With AI!
Companies are spending more on AI than ever before, even as the cost of AI itself has fallen. The price of running an AI query dropped 80 to 90% over the last two years. Total enterprise AI bills are skyrocketing anyway. Average enterprise AI spend rose from $1.2 million in 2024 to $7 million in […]
Old-Timers Are Right About What We’re Seeing. We’re Wrong About Why.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the same conversation, with a number of old-timers in business and sales. People who’ve been doing this for thirty-forty years. The conversation always arrives at the same conclusion. People don’t seem to care anymore. They don’t have the drive. They don’t have the joy. It’s just a job, […]
Managing The Number, Missing The Cause
Win rate drops. Pipeline coverage falls below target. Activity numbers slip. The standard managerial response is some version of “we need to improve win our rates” or “we need more pipeline” or “we need more calls this week.” The number becomes the problem to be solved. In one on ones or team meetings, the discussion […]
What You Can’t Count, You Have To See
Every leader who takes the behaviors of excellence seriously eventually asks: how do we measure them? How do we score curiosity, continuous learning, caring, customer centricity, the ability to deal with change and ambiguity, accountability, discipline, purpose? How do we turn these into something we can track and manage? The question, itself, is the problem. […]
“We Don’t Pay You To Think…..”
Judgment is the capacity we need most and are developing least. Every organization says it wants people who can think, who can navigate ambiguity, who can make the right call when the situation doesn’t fit the playbook. Yet, too many organizations create management systems designed to make judgment unnecessary. They have built processes to standardize […]
Do We Even Need A Sales Process?
If no one is using our sales processes, do we even need them? Are we just wasting a lot of time? I’ve argued for years that every buyer’s situation is different, every decision process is different. Given that, maybe a sales process is just a distraction. Maybe it’s slowing us down. Maybe it just doesn’t […]
The SaaS Sales Factory Is Broken
Look at most SaaS organizations today and you’ll hear the same language. Activities, velocity, scaling, predictable revenue. The underlying design has always been to build a selling factory; standardized inputs, consistent throughput, scalable output, predictable revenue. Sales strategists and leaders cite Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System as the inspiration. They talk about the […]
We’ve Built The Scoreboard, But Forgotten The Game.
Somewhere along the way, we replaced the mission, our outcomes, with the metric. What gets our attention are the scoreboards and dashboards, instead of what we are trying to achieve. It’s happened gradually, disguised as data-driven management. We built dashboards. We set targets. We tracked performance. And in that process, we got lost. The metric […]
Are We Using the Same Map?
Every seller has a map. It’s called a sales process. It has stages, milestones, and exit criteria. It tells sellers where they are, what they should be doing, and where they’re headed. In theory, it’s a GPS for getting from first conversation to a closed deal. While they have this “map/GPS,” based on their best […]
You Can Lead A Seller To Water, But You Can’t Make Them Think!
We’ve built something remarkable in modern sales organizations. Over the past two decades, we’ve constructed an elaborate infrastructure: scripts, playbooks, sequences, talk tracks, battle cards, cadences. We’ve constructed metrics tracking every activity, with performance dashboards providing red/yellow/green signals. We’ve built tech stacks that are the envy of our competitors. These have all been designed, theoretically, […]
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