Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
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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
A Day In The Lives Of Our Customers
What does a day in the life of your typical customer look like? What’s it like to walk in their shoes? How do the spend their time? How do they set their priorities? Who do they work with? What do those people do when they work with our customers? What does their work actually look like? How do they get things done? What tools do they use? Are they in firefighting mode? Do they have a disciplined/execution oriented focus? Do they jump from one thing to another? Are they achieving the goals management has established for them? Do they understand […]
Beating The Competition!
We are obsessed with our competitors. We develop all sorts of content and presentations focusing on our differentiation and why the customer should choose us over the alternatives. I don’t know how many “comparison charts” I’ve seen. You know those I’m talking about. The rows show the features and functions we think important. The columns show us and the competitors. Inevitably, more boxes are checked off for our products and solutions than those of the competition. And our competitors have their versions of the same comparisons. But it’s the features and functions that best support their case, making them look […]
What Problem Is Your Customer Really Trying To Solve?
The majority of sales people, unfortunately are just peddlers—walking, talking brochures. Needless to say, customers are finding digital sources of information much more useful than talking to those sales people. The data consistently shows customers limit contact with these types of sales people to the very end of the buying process. Some few sales people try to engage customers in a more impactful manner, trying to understand the customer problem presenting solutions to those problems. Inevitably, these sales people create more value and more differentiation for the customer. But there’s a problem with that, too often, we view the problem […]
Sales Management Is Really About Enablement
For the sales enablement professionals reading this, this is not about you, though you might think it is! When you strip away everything else, the job of sales managers is really about enablement—that is doing everything they can to enable their people to perform at the highest levels possible, to achieve their goals, and to develop to achieve their full potential. It starts with hiring the right people, assuring they are onboarded, providing the systems, processes, tools, training they need to be successful. It continues to removing barriers to their success, whether it’s helping them get things done within the […]
Fear Of Failure
As sales people and leaders, we have an interesting relationship with failure. We are in an intensely competitive profession. Our customers are and should be evaluating alternatives. In any buying decision, there will only be one supplier selected, with the others losing. As good as any of us are, we all fail! Like any other human being, we probably have an aversion to failure. It’s discomforting, sometimes embarrassing. None of us want to admit to failing. Too often, managers or marketing seek to orchestrate our activities and days. They strictly prescribe what we do, with who, scripting the words we […]
What Do Our Customers “Owe” Us?
Someone wrote to me, somewhat earnestly, “We need to know the buyer has our best interests in mind…..” As I reflected on this statement, similar statements came to mind: “The customer owes me a return call,” “I took the time to meet with them, why won’t they respond?” I’m sure you have your own versions of these statements about what proper etiquette or behavior is, what we are owed by our customers. Every once in a while, I have those same experiences. It’s frustrating. You have what you think is a great conversation, then the customer disappears, they never respond. […]