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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
Sales Performance, It’s Not “Them”
Not long ago, I received a call from a frustrated executive. I listened as he went through a litany of complaints about the sales team. You can probably guess them: They weren’t hitting their numbers, in fact they were missing by a long way. They weren’t making quota. Their win rates were abysmal. Sales cycles were way too long. Forecasts were terrible. There was too much discounting. There was a fair amount of turnover in the organization. …..and the list went on…. I let him get everything off his chest, after he ran out of steam, I suggested, “Maybe it […]
Sales Agility And Adaptability
A few of us have been having a conversation about whether adaptability and agility are important in sales. I think we are in uniform agreement it is important, however, my initial reaction was, “Why are we even asking this question, isn’t it a foundation to selling?” As I reflected on the issue, I get why it’s an important conversation. It seem so much of “contemporary” sales practice is going in the opposite direction. Between rigidly applied sales processes, scripting, and “predictable” approaches to selling, much of the ability to be agile has been taken out of selling. The lack skill/competency […]
Do You Have The Right People On The Bus?
Recently, I was discussing some of the key performance challenges too many organizations face. The executives I was speaking with spoke about all the investments they were making in sales enablement—tools, training, programs, content, etc. The results they were getting were OK–but not great. They seemed to be doing many of the right things, but these things weren’t moving the needle as expected. It’s a pretty common problem, despite our best efforts in training and equipping our people to perform, we just aren’t getting the results we expect or need. In fact, much of the data point to the opposite, […]
Digital Sales Transformation In A Customer First World
The Digitization Of Business impacts every business and virtually individual in the world. It’s this and the next decade’s industrial revolution. The digitization of business is not just about the application of technology to business, it’s really about deploying capabilities, solutions, engaging employees, customers, suppliers and communities in ways that have only been imagined in science fiction. Currently, we see only the tip of the iceberg of potential and already they are having amazing impacts in healthcare, financial services, retail, technology, transportation, consumer products and other sectors. As with the businesses we work for and with, Digitization will demand we […]
Do Customers Really Want A Frictionless Buying Experience?
It seems to be fashionable to talk about creating “frictionless buying experiences?” I suppose the concept draws readers, perhaps it’s an extreme expression of removing barriers to the customer buying process. But does the concept make sense? Is it what customers want? And if we looked at the concept of “friction in the buying process, what is the greatest source of friction? Long time readers will recognize when I ponder questions like this, sometimes I revert back to my background in physics. If I look at an object in motion in a frictionless environment, they become impossible to stop. it […]
Nuance, So Subtle, We Often Miss It
Nuance is important to our ability to connect with impact to our customers and our people. Yet, too often, we miss it, or completely ignore it. Let’s start with what nuance is: 1 :a subtle distinction or variation “Nuances of flavor and fragrance cannot be described accurately …” —Scott Seegers “… these terms have certain nuances of meaning …” —Ben F. Nelms 2 :a subtle quality :nicety “… the nuances of an individual’s voice …” —Michael Swaine 3 :sensibility to, awareness of, or ability to express delicate shadings (as of meaning, feeling, or value) Too often, we design our engagement […]