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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
The Data On Sales Success Is In!
We’ve run across some startling data on sales performance: 99% of sales reps making quota pee at least once a day! 98% of sales reps who show up for work on a regular basis are more likely to makes quota than those who never show up for work! 96% of sales people making quota, brush their teeth at least once a week. From these startling pieces of data, clearly the secret to sales success is peeing at least once a day, showing up for work, and brushing your teeth at least once a week (sorry we didn’t test daily brushing, […]
The Killer Closing Technique
Sales people continually looking for the killer close. Somehow, there has to be something the sales person can say or do which causes the customer to immediately issue a PO. Through my career, I’ve been “taught” and subjected to 100’s of different closes. The assumptive close, the puppy dog close, the limited time close, and the list goes on and on and on. As a customer, I think the best response these techniques have ever elicited is a quiet groan and eyeroll. Usually, these techniques evoke an internal reacion, “I’ll buy when I’m damn ready to buy and from who […]
You Can’t Have Pipeline Integrity Without Deal Integrity…..
Actually, the title of this post should be: You Can’t Have Pipeline Integrity Without Deal Integrity; You Can’t Have Deal Integrity Without A Sales Process People Use! But it was too long. This is one of those “hip bone is connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone is connected to …….” posts. Sales managers seem to be obsessed with pipeline reviews. They tend to take precedence over deal reviews or anything else. To some degree, this makes sense. After all, sales managers are focused on making the number, and the pipeline is the key indicator for making the numbers. […]
Why’s This Deal Keep Slipping?
I’ve been reviewing a bunch of deals in a client’s CRM system. There’s a disturbing pattern, as we start approaching the end of the month, all of a sudden the target close dates start getting pushed out. Deals we expected to close this month slip into the next month. As I review the deal histories, I see the same pattern, month after month of slippage. I looked at one deal, the target close date had shifted 11 times in the past 6 months! Deal slippage is a critical metric. If deals continue to slip, it tells me the sales person […]
Webcast: The Frightening Cost Of A Salesperson
I had the pleasure of being hosted by the great folks at PipelinerCRM. John Golden, Eric Quanstrom, Rachel Miller, and I had a wide ranging discussion on “the business of sales.” Our discussion started with recruiting, continued to onboarding, training, coaching, sales process, performance management, and even time management! Whew! I’m exhausted 😉 I hope you enjoy the discussion as much as I enjoyed participating. Thanks to John, Eric, Rachel, everyone who participated, and the folks at Pipeliner! Be sure to watch their other Sales Chats!
“Nothing Happens Until A Customer Decides To Change”
There’s the old saying, “Nothing happens in an organization until a sale is made!” Usually, it’s sales people saying it, often trying to defend their positions in the organization. While the statement is true, we really need to revise it to more closely reflect the reality of what it takes to generate revenue, and the emerging new role of the sales professional. We really need to be focused on, “Nothing happens until a customer decides to change.” If a customer is happy with what they are doing, if they believe they are operating effectively, that they have no problems, that […]