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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
Creating Crap At The Speed Of Light!
I think I’m suffering “Social Selling Fatigue.” Perhaps it’s the time of year, perhaps Kelly Riggs pushed me over the edge forwarding this article, “How B2B Sales Can Benefit From Social Selling.” But I’ve reached a tipping point. I usually try avoiding lashing out directly, but I just can’t help it. The article is filled with a lot of data, much taken out of context, much from research that has been questioned or even discredited, but it supports the authors’ points and what they have to sell. But it misses too many points, and actually misses much of the power […]
Are You Guilty Of Picking Things Apart?
It seems to be human nature to pick things apart. We may be looking at a new prospecting or marketing program, we may be looking at a deal strategy, we may be looking at a new organizational structure. Whatever the level we act, we have a propensity to look for faults, or what could go wrong. We hear various manifestations of that in lot’s of ways, “We’ve tried this before…..” “But we’ve always done things another way….” “We’re different…..” “There’s a lot that could go wrong…” Think of your own favorite ways to pick things apart. Too often, when we […]
Building Effective Marketing And Sales Strategies
I just read an outstanding article, How To Create An Effective Account-Based Sales Strategy In 5 Steps. It’s quite an excellent article, netting out the 5 Steps: Define your ideal company profile. Define your ideal buyer personas. Build a sales process to match each buyer journey. Provide content to match each stage for key personas. Measure, learn, improve. I finished this, applauding. I might have added some items around focusing on what the customer values and value creation, but I’m certain that is implied in the steps outlined in this article. But then I thought, aren’t these the steps of […]
Acting Beyond Ourselves, Having An Impact On Others
Long time followers of this blog will recognize this is the time of year when I will make a full court press on my audience to take action. It’s the time when I am blatantly asking you for your money! It’s not for me (I can hear the collective sighs of relief with people realizing I haven’t turned into a slimy sales person.) It’s for a very specific purpose: To provide clean water to those that don’t have it. It’s providing a donation–whatever you can afford–to Charity:Water. I believe each of us has a higher purpose. We need to think […]
New Logos, Account Development, Hunting
Recently, Don Mulhern and I were have a discussion about misunderstandings–consequently lost opportunities in prospecting, new account development, account growth. We know prospecting is critical for all sales people. If you are focused on new logos, you assess your territory, finding all the customers in your territory that have the problems your solutions solve. The sales person identifies these prospects, engages them, and hopefully converts enough to POs to achieve her goals. We spend a lot of time talking about the importance of sales people that are outstanding at hunting to find those new logos and companies, and close them. […]
If You’ve Ever Been Fired, I’ll Never Hire You!
There’s an article that’s getting a lot of attention, If You’ve Ever Been Fired, I’ll Never Hire You! It’s a commentary on a “manager’s” perspective that being “fired” is a black spot on anyone’s career and that manager taking the position that anyone who has been fired should never be considered for a job. Unfortunately, I think too many managers share that opinion. It’s an ill-informed opinion from many perspectives. There are all sorts of reasons, good or bad that a person is terminated. What we often miss about termination is that it is as much a fault of management […]