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
Conversations……
Let’s step out of our selling roles for a moment and talk about conversations. Think about the conversations you have within your own organizations. Think about the conversations you have with colleagues and partners. In reflecting on those conversations, what are the characteristics of the most impactful conversations and meetings? Think, also, of the meetings […]
Can You Hold Up Your Side Of The Conversation?
We have tools and technology that “equip” us for conversations with our customers. In years past, it might have taken hours to put that together, preparing for a single call. Now, all of it is at our fingertips. The problem is, these are the starting points to a conversation. And if they work, as we […]
Deal Slippage
Deal slippage is a huge issue for all sellers, but also for buyers. Let’s dive into what drives deal slippage. Most deal slippage is not really deal slippage. Let me call it “faux slippage.” This slippage has nothing to do with the buyer, their sense of urgency, or when they need to have a solution […]
The Conundrum Of “Freeing Up Time,” Part 2
Time management is always an issue, and with everyone. We leverage tools, techniques, technologies that are supposed to make us more efficient and to free up time. But we still struggle. I wrote about the challenge high performers face in “The Conundrum Of Freeing Up Time, Part 1.” This post focuses on how we look […]
The Conundrum Of “Freeing Up Time,” Part 1
We, rightfully, constantly seek to free up time. Yesterday, coaching an executive, the key issue was “freeing up time.” For such a senior executive, to some it might seem surprising, but it comes up in virtually every conversation I have, at every level of the organization. It’s interesting, I see two, almost diametrically oppose, things […]
The Problem With Sales Math, A Thought Experiment
The answer to every seller’s dream is more volume. “If we only had more leads, we could have more top of funnel, which produces more opportunities, …….” We have the algorithms that help us identify what we need to achieve our goals. Simplistically, “X top of funnel produces Y revenue.” For whatever revenue goal we […]
How Manufacturing Works, Applying It To Selling
For some reason, there’s a huge attraction to applying “manufacturing techniques” to selling. I suspect it’s the perceived orderliness to manufacturing processes and the predictability of the outcome. It’s easy to understand that attraction. The lean approaches applied to manufacturing create a hyper efficient process. Second, it always produces the same outcome (manufacturing experts will […]
Selling Math, Can We Do Better?
We focus on scaling and growth. We revel in incredible growth rates, doing better than we did last year, having aspirations to do better next year than we did this year. We are hitting the numbers, maxing our comp plans, keeping our investors happy. We engage in high fives and chest bumping all around. Of […]
Do You “Practice What You Preach(Sell)?”
Years ago, in CRO or CEO roles, I was involved in buying tools, training, consulting to help improve the performance of our teams. While we had people assigned to drive most of the process, inevitably, I would be involved in some of the final presentations. In each of the presentations, I would ask one thing, […]
The New Secret To Selling Success!!
We are driven to find the single magical secret to selling success. That one thing, if we do it well, everything else magically falls into place and all our problems go away. If we find and do that one thing, our worries about hitting our goals, maxing our comp plans, achieving our scaling plans, max’ing […]
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