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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
Who Am I Talking To?
I suppose I’m being naive. I had always thought “social platforms,” were a way that we could connect and engage with each other. While they wouldn’t replace face to face and personal connections, they might expand our relationships. They would enable us to expand our relationships–though they wouldn’t be close, with people we might not otherwise meet. For example, I might look at the connections I have in LinkedIn, being very interested in their content and news streams–learning more about them and learning from them. But it turns out the majority of what I see, is probably not “them,” but […]
The New World Of Co-Opetition
The relationships we establish, in business, are very complex and constantly changing. We have relationships with colleagues. At some point, we or colleagues may choose to go work someplace else–even our competition. We don’t, at least I haven’t, stopped those relationships. Most of the time, there is intense competition–I want to beat them, just as they want to beat me. But we still value and maintain our relationships. Our customers know we sell to their competitors. We take that as our “right,” and customers understand this. Our customers work with our competitors. Sometimes a competitor may be the preferred solution […]
Sales—Science Or Art?
Recently, I read an article about sales being more science than art. Perhaps, I was a little unfair in my comments, but the author’s premises were flawed. I think we want to see sales being more like science because of what we perceive as the predictability and certainty that seems to exist in science. We want to be able to say, “If this……then that…..,” applying rigorous formulas that drive our success. Books and thousands of articles focus on creating rigid structures and formulas that create predictable success. For example, in the referenced article, the author used the example, “Water always […]
“Customer Propensity To Buy”
For those people deep into analytics and understanding (usually) consumer buying behaviors, the concept of Propensity To Buy, is not new. It’s been around for decades. Propensity to buy is simply about determining the liklihood of a customer buying something. We use it in developing our websites, our web ad strategies, our marketing programs, and all sorts of things. The goal is to identify that moment and set of conditions (product, place, price) that a customer is most likely to buy. While the propellerheads, try to develop propensity to buy models with 5 decimal points of accuracy, this concept is […]
Great Selling Is “Habit Forming!”
I’m sure you’ve experienced something that gives you a “rush.” It’s when, all of a sudden, everything just falls into place, everything is working as it should, it seems effortless. Sometimes we experience it in sports. For example, when I’m riding, I get it a groove, I’m in a paceline, my pedal stroke is perfect, I’m being pulled by the rider in front of me or pulling the riders behind me. It’s a perfect feeling. Alternatively, it’s when everything comes together for the perfect golf stroke, everything seems effortless and the ball goes just where you intended it (I have […]
Do We Know How To Do “Needs Discovery/Analysis?”
My good friend, Brian MacIver, reminded me of the struggle sales people have in doing “Needs Analysis.” I suspect there are a lot of reasons. Much is simply the fact that “we” typically get involved in the customer buying process very late. Most data is now showing customers may be 70% or more through their buying process before they first involve sales. By that time, they have completed (or think they have) their needs analysis, and are moving to selecting a solution. “We,” naturally like that because we get to talk about our products, our companies, ourselves. It’s what we’ve […]