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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
Rethinking Sales Skills And Competencies
Wayne Gretzky has the famous quote describing why he is an all time top performer in the NHL. I’m sure you know it, but he answered the question about how he managed to perform so well by saying, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.” (Yeah, I know this quote has become a cliche, but it is still great!) Unfortunately, as I talk to executives and sales people alike, particularly around skills and competencies critical to sales success, I get the impression we are focused on “where the puck is.” That is, most […]
Stop All This Nonsense About Value Add!
There’s a fascinating discussion about the various dimensions of “value” driven by Deb Calvert’s article on Why Prospects Are Buying From Your Competitors. Here’s the link to the discussion, be sure to look at it. But there is a part of the discussion that really bothers me, it’s about the concept of Value Add. First, all of us have been raised to think about and sell our Value Add. It’s become second nature to every sales person. It’s all those extra things that we “add” to the basic value the customer expects. “If you buy from me, here are all […]
Sales Managers Need Coaching And Development Too!
Virtually everything one reads about driving sales performance and productivity focuses on the sales person. 1000’s of books and articles provide endless advise to help improve sales people skills. Billions are spent in training and skills development—all focused on the sales person. Billions are spent on tools–again all aimed at the sales person. Increasingly we are recognizing the impact that managers have on individual and team performance. There’s a lot of data about the impact of disciplined approaches to coaching on sales performance. Win rates are much higher comparing those managers having a disciplined approach to coaching versus those that […]
Our Products Are Becoming Commoditized!
It seems every product, regardless of how complex, is destined for some level of commoditization. In virtually every industry, we look at products and solutions that were very complex. These require great product knowledge and extensive work with the customer to help them understand the product and it’s application. Over time, as products get greater market penetration, as competition increases, as we go through cycles of enhancement of the products, as customers get greater familiarity with them—-products, inevitably become commoditized. Computers used to be a mystery, they were very complex (still are), our customers didn’t understand them, and legions of […]
Driving Growth Through Partnerships, A Discussion With Bill Corbin, CenturyLink
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Bill Corbin, Senior Vice President, Alliances and Strategic Partnerships for CenturyLink. We had a wide ranging discussion on leveraging channels and partnerships to drive more effective engagement with customers. I thought I’d share some of our discussion. Dave Brock (DB): Bill, before we get into it, can you share a little of your background? Bill Corbin (BC): I’ve been involved in various aspects of “channels” for most of my career—both working in the channel and in roles with major companies like CenturyLink. I’ve been here the past year, really focused on […]
Bits And Pieces — June 24, 2017
In my last Bits and Pieces article, I referred to a series of articles I’d written about applying manufacturing and lean techniques to sales and marketing. It was quite a long series, but I’ve had a lot of interest in it. I’ve consolidated the series into an eBook — What Can Sales Learn From Lean Manufacturing? The first edition of this is a consolidation of the 5 articles and some additional commentary on the challenges of applying the principles from the Toyota Production System to sales and marketing. I was also reminded, I wrote another eBook on Lean Sales And […]