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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
Just Because We’re In Your ICP Doesn’t Mean I Have A Need To Buy!
I wrote about how badly too many sales people conduct discovery with their customer: Are You Guilty Of Conducting “Non-Discovery?” It’s useful to expand on that initial post. We know the importance of focusing your prospecting and pipeline development efforts on people and companies fitting your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). These are the customers who are most likely to have the problems/challenges that our solutions address. Trying to find opportunities outside the ICP is a pure waste of time–unfortunately too many sales people are glad to waste their time in this way. But just because you are focusing on customers […]
Are You Guilty Of Conducting “Non-Discovery?”
We all know the importance of conducting discovery calls. In principle, a discovery call is to help us learn more about the customer, their needs, problems, dreams, and goals. Once we “discover” these, we can determine whether the customer has a need that we can address, we can assess the urgency and interest the customer might have in addressing those needs. But there’s something lacking in the majority of the discovery calls I see. There are the standard questions, to which there are always the standard answers: “Of course I’m interested in growing my business and revenue, of course I’m […]
There Are No Secrets In Selling!
I am flattered that Brandon Bornancin wants to interview me for his upcoming book on the secrets to selling. I fear that I may be a little disappointing. When Brandon and his team first asked, my response was, “The real secret is there are no secrets. You have to do the work!” I’ve been saying this in this blog, in keynotes, on LinkedIn—wherever I have the opportunity. Somehow, that’s not what people want to hear. Somehow they want to believe there is just one thing, properly executed, causes the customer to immediately succumb, granting a meeting, issuing a PO, doing […]
When Non-Salespeople Sell
Saturday morning, I was waiting for my appointment to get my haircut. Regina (my hairdresser) had just finished with a lady. As she was paying, the lady asked for a bottle of shampoo. As Regina got the bottle, she also pulled a bottle of something else. She told the customer, “You may want to also consider this…..” I don’t really know what it was, but the lady asked some questions. Regina replied, “It’s a little expensive, but it will help you with this problem you have with your hair.” They talked “hair stuff” for a few minutes, the customer bought […]
Are You Selling Your Experience Or Your Value?*
Too often, we confuse our experience with creating value. While they are linked, they are distinctly different. Our experience focuses on us–perhaps reference customers that we have worked with in the past. “We’ve worked with Google, Microsoft, Siemens, General Motors……” These are supposed to demonstrate our customer base, implying we’ve done great things with them, and perhaps, to generate credibility as we speak with customers (if they are relevant references). We may talk about our deep experience and expertise in certain industries or solving specific problems. These are important, they help our customer understand our capabilities and whether we might […]
Building Your Support System
This is one of those topics I never thought I would have to write about. It’s a subject I assumed was such common sense and common practice that there was no value I could add by writing about it. Turns out, I’m probably a little naive. Right now, I’m involved in at least halve a dozen situations where very capable people are failing because they haven’t understood the importance of building and maintaining a support network. Building and maintaining support systems is critical for everyone — period. But let me focus on business and selling. The day of the lone […]