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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
“Buyer’s Remorse” Grows Up
When I first started selling — way back in the dark ages — one of the things I learned about was “buyer’s remorse.” It was the tendency for customers to start second guessing themselves after they made a decision. Buyer’s remorse was a bit of a challenge. Often, our competitors would try to reverse a decision, raising FUD, suggesting there might be problems, or trying to sweeten their offer. Or they might to raise new issues or talk about other capabilities, “you know this feature and capability might be something you really need…” One of the biggest issues was our […]
Pricing And Discounting Are Different!
As usual, I’ve stuck my nose into some on-line discussions. This time, the discussion started on “creating value,” and devolved into a discussion of discounting. Bob Apollo kicked off the discussion with the premise: Discounting is a sign of failure. It’s something I wholeheartedly agree with. Without meaning to repeat Bob’s post, discounting comes as a result of our inability to get the customer to understand the value that we provide and create. It comes from our inability to differentiate and defend that value in ways meaningful to the customer. It is the result of a failure of execution on […]
Selling, If I Were Starting My Career Again, Would I Choose To Sell?
I saw a post by a “sales expert.” He suggested that if he were to be starting his career all over, he would probably not choose to sell. His argument didn’t make much sense, it basically focused on consumer product sales and believed AI would quickly take over the function of sales people. Basically, his reasoning was nonsense. However, the question was interesting. I started my career as a sales person a little less than 40 years ago. Since then, I’ve progressed through a number of sales, management, executive roles in small and gigantic companies. But, if I were starting […]
How Does Your Customer Make Money?
Can you answer the question, “How does you customer make money?” By that, I don’t mean at a superficial level, like, “Well, dugghh, Dave, they sell stuff……” I mean really understanding your customer’s business. It includes things like: Who are their customers/markets? What drives success with them? How are those markets growing? How does you customer position themselves with those customers, competitors, and in the markets? How do they hold the customer, how do they create value? Are they leaders and innovators, fast followers, middle of the pack, low price alternatives? What are their strategies and priorities in their markets? […]
“Commander’s Intent,” Trust, And Sales Performance
In military history, there has long been the concept of “Commander’s Intent.” Great leaders recognized they could never anticipate and plan for everything that might happen in battle. Rather than giving orders that might try to dictate what to do in every possible situation, commander’s intent focuses on the outcomes they are trying to achieve in a certain operation. The goal behind this, and what makes it effective, is that it frees troops at lower levels to adapt and change what/how they execute, responding to the specific situation, but still focused on achieving the desired outcomes. There are a couple […]
False Choices: Transactional Versus Solution Selling Approaches
Often, I get into conversations about the sales approach a company deploys. There are questions of, “should we be transactional, product, solutions, consultative focused?” Often, particularly with XaaS companies, the executives leap to the conclusion, “We have to be transactional, “SaaS” focused. We want to drive predictable revenue through a high volume/velocity transactional approach.” That’s often because, “that’s what every other SaaS company does.” Others have a biased view based on what they perceive as the complexity and impact of their offerings, “We want to be a high value add partner and want a solutions based approach to selling.” Sadly, […]