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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
We’ve Trained Our Customers Too Well!
I was reviewing a large deal with a sales team recently. They were struggling to develop a winning strategy, so we were doing a deep dive into the situation. At one point in the discussion I asked, “What is the problem they are trying to solve and why is it critical to solve it?” There was a silence in the room. I looked around and got blank stares in return. Sometimes I ask questions obliquely, though I didn’t think the question was that difficult to understand, so I rephrased the question. “Why are you proposing the solution you’ve selected?” I […]
Automation And Customer Intimacy
Some years ago, there was a lot of discussion about Customer Intimacy—–no, not that kind! (Get your minds out of the gutter!) Customer intimacy is about really knowing our customers–both the organizations and individuals. What are they trying to achieve? What are their dreams? What are the opportunities they have to grow and improve? It’s also about knowing how they work, what drives them, what problems they have, how they are perceived, what competition they face, what is happening with their customers and markets, where they may be vulnerable, and how they get things done. Finally, customer intimacy is about […]
Your Call Is Important To Us…..
I’m a current customer. I want to buy something from you, it will increase the value of our current relationship by about 50%. I just need some information before I submit an order. We can probably cover it in about 5 minutes and you will get an additional $10K+ per year. I called your customer service number. I’ve been on hold for 48 minutes and 57 seconds. Yes, I know I’m supposed to research things at your web site first. I did, but it was amazingly deficient in providing meaningful information. Perhaps other customers found the same problem, that’s why hold […]
“I Need To Hire A Rainmaker!”
A client called me up stating, “I need to hire a rainmaker.” He is the CEO of a mid sized company that’s struggling a little, and wanted my help in finding someone. Since I’ve always struggled with the concept of a rainmaker, so I asked him what he meant. He replied, “I need someone to make things happen!” He went on to describe someone who could turn around the most difficult situations, walk into a prospect and in one or two meetings inspire the customer to whip out a PO. I was tempted to ask if the candidate needed to pull […]
80% Of Our Revenue Comes From…….
Data is powerful. We’re all enamored with analytics and what they can tell us about our customers and our business. But data can also be very dangerous if we really don’t understand it. If we only look at it on a surface level, never drilling down to understand it, we can draw dangerously wrong conclusions. We’re all familiar with the Pareto Principle. Somehow, it seems virtually every piece of analysis fits the Pareto Principle (or almost). 80% of our revenue is generated by 20% of our sales people. 80% of our revenue comes from 20% of our customers, 80% of our […]
In Defense Of Transactional Buying
It’s not often I disagree with my friend, Anthony Iannarino, but he recently wrote a great post, Transactional Selling To Avoid Conflicts Around Price. I don’t really disagree with his point of view, but I think there is a different way of looking at transactional selling, or rather, transactional buying. We always tend to associate these with “priced based buying.” We tend to think the only value we can create is through pricing actions–discounting. First, price is always a key consideration whether we are involved in a complex or transactional buying/selling process. As sales professionals, we have to create sufficient value to […]