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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
Focus On The Customer Need To Buy
The big problem sales people have is their obsessive focus on their need to sell. Every sales person I talk to is obsessed on their targets and goals, “I’ve got to make this many calls; I’ve got to have this many meetings: I’ve got to make this many proposals: I’ve got to close this many deals to make my number…….” If a sales person is behind, the intensity of focus (at least for people who aren’t losers) gets far more intense—sometimes, with added pressure from management, sales people even become panicked. The focus is on selling and meeting that need […]
Learning From “Lazy” Salespeople
“Lazy” sales people are among my favorites–let me qualify that. “Lazy” sales people who always make their goals are among my favorites. “Lazy” sales people, or at least those who seem to accomplish a lot with minimum effort have broken the code. They’ve understood exactly what they need to do to achieve their goals. They don’t waste time on things that don’t achieve their goals. “Lazy” sales people have figured out the things that too many “busy” sales people may not have. They don’t chase bad deals. They don’t engage in wishful thinking. They quickly identify the most critical issues […]
What’s A Full Pipeline/Funnel?
I participated in a fascinating discussion about Disqualification. It was on LinkedIn, led by Steve Hall. Click on the link to look at the comments, it’s pretty interesting. But a part of the discussion was really intriguing and brought out how badly we understand pipeline’s and our numbers. As a result, we drive for the wrong things and fail to produce results. It started with me taking my usual extreme position around Vicious Disqualification. Along with Steve and others, we believe sales people waste too much time chasing the wrong deals. Too many pipelines are filled with garbage–stuff that isn’t […]
My Journey On Micro-Improvements
Long time readers of the blog will know for the past 18-24 months I’ve been obsessed with the concept of micro-improvements—how do I get 1% better each day? For closed to two years–well up to 6 weeks ago—I tracked and scored myself on a series of questions. Thing like, “Did I set clear goals for the day; Did I do my best to achieve those goals; Was I getting the right exercise; Am I minimizing distractions…..” For over a year, scoring myself every day, reflecting on what I did and didn’t do seemed to be working. I was seeing better […]
Starting At “Zero,” Again…..
Sales is about the only profession, where each fiscal year, we have the opportunity to start at zero. What we have done in the past year, good or bad, is past. We all have a clean slate to start all over again. As we look at this clean slate, we have an opportunity. We can continue to do the same things we have always done, replaying past years over and over, probably producing similar results. Or we can consider this a fresh start. We can reassess what we have done, what we need to do. We can look at what […]
Zero-Based Sales Planning
As we start a new year, perhaps your plans are locked in. But perhaps there is an opportunity to rethink or, even to reinvent what we think about the sales function and how we sell. So much of what we do is done just because, “That’s the way we’ve always done things.” We think we may have evolved, but in reality we’ve just applied a layer of technology and updated language and jargon. For example rather than being customer focused and consultative, we are insight driven. But fundamentally, we are doing the things we have always done, but perhaps at […]