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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
Are We Getting Better As Sales Professionals?
Some of you know that one of my biggest vices is high performance vehicles. My garages, at various times, have been filled with cool motorcycles, old American muscle cars, and occasionally an exotic vehicle. Recently, I indulged in buying a new car. It has some awesome technologies, all oriented to making my driving experience better and easier. The car is fantastic, it almost parks itself (actually in Europe it would). It has cameras and sensors that guide me into the parking spot and forces me to stop just shy of the curb. When I drive, it keeps me from drifting outside […]
Is Some Revenue Better Than No Revenue?
The knee jerk reaction to the question, “Is some revenue better than no revenue,” is probably a resounding, Duuuuhhhhhh, well why wouldn’t it be??! But let me provide a little context. I just had an exchange with a reader commenting on a post I wrote a couple of years ago, We Can’t Ignore Poor Performers! One of his points about poor performers was, “at least they are producing some revenue,” implying, “Why rock the boat?” His view is actually not that uncommon. Too many managers tend to accept what they know is bad performance, with the excuse of “At least […]
Stop Wasting Money On Marketing Automation, Personas, And Content Marketing!
Recently, I lamented about the challenge I face with my email Inbox in Your Marketing Is Driving Me Away! I spoke of the ever increasing volume of email messages that are simply irrelevant, undifferentiated, or poorly executed. And these are the marketing emails from well established organizations, sent by marketing and sales professionals. Coincidentally, I read a research report on The State Of Email Marketing 2015. Click on the link, the blog post provides an interesting summary. The report was the result of a survey of over 1800 email marketers, around the world. There’s a lot of interesting information, but one […]
Your Marketing Is Driving Me Away!
Every day, I receive somewhere between 150-200 emails–“valid emails,” not the hundreds that flow directly into my junk mail folder. About 50% of them are client/colleague communications, emails about something I have a direct interest in, or are directly work related messages. Things important to what I’m working on and my company. About 50% of them are prospecting or other marketing communications emails. Translated, that means people and companies are trying to reach out and “touch” me about 75-100 times every day (Yuck, maybe I need a bigger bottle of Purell on my desk). It’s overwhelming! When I take the […]
Prescription, The Double Edged Sword
Being prescriptive with our sales teams and our customers is a hot topic these days. Prescription, done well, can be very powerful. It helps focus us on the most effective ways to achieve our goals and objectives. Prescription enables us to leverage our past experience, learning what’s most effectively, constantly refining, and tuning it to improve the results we achieve. It helps us leverage best practice or experience across the organization, driving higher levels of performance and greater consistency in execution. It’ very helpful with buyers. They struggle with identifying the most critical things they must be doing opportunity-solving, including […]
The Looming Implosion Of Sales/Marketing Automation Apps
The other day, I was sitting in the airport and had a few idle minutes. For some reason, I started playing with my IPhone. I started moving some of the apps around to make them easier to find, based on my utilization. Business, Social Media, Conferencing, and Travel on the first page. Mapping, “Yelp-like,” and my fitness apps on the second. News, Reading, Entertainment, Music apps on the third. Camera/Photo and miscellaneous apps on the fourth. At some point I looked at the number of apps on my phone–215. I was blown away. I had no idea I had so […]