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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
What Do Prospects Owe Sales People?
I had a fascinating exchange of emails with a very good sales person. He described a particularly difficult sales situation. It started well, then all of a sudden things fell apart. As he tried to recover or at least understand, there was a series of miscommunications, ending in the customer/prospect saying, “Don’t ever contact me or anyone in my company again.” The sales person had learned a lot in the process. He recognized that he had made some errors–all unintentional–but he could have handled the situation better. But I was struck by something at the end of the note, it […]
What Makes You Different?
What Makes You Different? It’s probably one of the most powerful questions in sales and for sales people. There are so many important dimensions to this question. Customers challenge us with that question. If we focus our differentiation on our products, solutions–too often, the only differentiation is our price. We have to find different answers to that question. Some years ago, Geoffrey Moore suggested that what makes you different wasn’t the product–but the total product or extended product offering. Things like customer service, quality, the power of the brand, our expertise, the reputation of the company. But again–there are lots […]
Coaching To Your Strengths Or Your Salesperson’s Weakness?
I was reminded in a great conversation with Bruce Lewolt of a problem all managers tend to face in coaching. We tend to coach to our strengths–not to the weaknesses of the sales person. It’s something that’s almost subconscious, but limiting to the individuals we are coaching, as well as overall organizational performance. We see it all the time. Recently, I was watching a sales manager coach one of her sales people. The manager was particularly strong on closing and negotiating. We had looked at the sales person’s pipeline. A lot of the deals seemed to be stuck. Despite all the […]
Sales Acceleration, Andy Paul Interviews Dave Brock
I had the pleasure of talking to Andy Paul about Sales Acceleration. We discussed priorities for sales leaders, where sales acceleration fits in, and what sales acceleration actually means. This discussion was sponsored by Pipeliner CRM and originally appeared on their site: “Sales Acceleratation” Means “Buyer Acceleration.”
Rethinking Account And Opportunity Prioritization
I’ve written quite a bit about the importance of defining our “sweet spots.” It’s really important, both from an account prioritization (think of all your account based marketing/sales strategies) and to make sure you are prospecting/qualifying the right deals. Too often, the definition of sweet spots is far too broad or general. We may say: We’re targeting the financial services industry, or manufacturing companies, or any other segment. But any of these are huge. Financial services includes commercial banks, investment companies, insurance, hedge funds, credit card, financing and a number of other segments. Each of which are very different. Likewise manufacturing […]
How Do You Start Your Prospecting?
I’m coaching a frustrated sales person. He’s running up against a brick wall on his prospecting. He’s sending emails, calling, sending emails……. Most of the time there’s no response, so he sends more. Sometimes, to shut him down, he get’s a response–perhaps it’s an “Unsubscribe” in the title line, or more politely, “Sorry, it doesn’t make sense to talk, we don’t have budget.” The experience this sales person was having is the same story I hear from thousands of others. Fundamentally, he was starting his prospecting in the wrong place. Let’s back track a little. I asked him to forward […]