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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
“How Much Does It Hurt?”
I was in the doctor’s office for a check up the other day and was fascinated with the “Pain Chart” on his examining room wall. It was one of those simple things doctors use to help patients describe the magnitude of pain they are experiencing. I’m sure you’ve seen them, typically a 0-10 scale ranging from “Ouch,” to “PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY!” My doctor explained the chart to me. He said that it’s really difficult to get people to describe their pain. They can describe where it is, they can describe a little bit of the nature of […]
The “Squishy” Buying Cycle
Too often, we think of the customer’s buying process as something that, once we understand it, is fairly structured and defined. Our job as sales professionals becomes aligning our selling process with the customer’s buying process, moving through the process in a disciplined manner. I think there is a different view of the buying cycle, one that is more “squishy.” Hank Barnes of Gartner, has an interesting concept of the buying cycle being a series of “activity streams,” each going at various speeds. These streams are constantly working–but with differing levels of focus and activity. The outcome of these buying […]
Purpose Driven Sales
pur-pose: noun, 1. The object toward which one strives or for which something exists an aim or a goal…… 2. A result of effect that is intended or desired, an intention. 3. Determination, resolution. 4. The matter at hand; the point at issue. Being purpose driven is not an accident. It’s a choice, a conscious strategy to achieve. It’s a choice about creating meaning in everything we do. It is why we choose to sell, less how or what we sell. Being purpose driven is doing things by design. It’s about having a strategy, it’s about having a plan and executing […]
Shooting From The Lip
Most sales people are very fast-we think fast, we react, we talk. We’re prepared to immediately jump in, reacting to anything that’s happened in our deals. We’ve been through similar situations over and over, we have polished responses and can deal with virtually anything. The customer says something, we respond. Couple that with being busy. We have too much on our plates. We have reviews, meetings, we’re measured by activities—often meaningless activities. We don’t take the time to prepare, after all we can just shoot from the lip. We can always respond to anything the customer does, we listen for the […]
We Can’t Ignore Poor Performers!
Every organization has them, the bottom 20%, the people who are not meeting our expectations of performance. They’re a problem–for themselves, for their managers, for the organization, and for your customers. My friend, Mike Kunkle wrote a great post on this, Focus On Your Average And Poor Performers To Improve Sales. Too often, we just ignore them. We shut them out, we don’t spend time working with them. When we do, they have the potential of sucking up management time. Ignoring poor performers is the worst thing we can possibly do. Yet hundreds of blog posts would imply that you […]
Searching For Answers
Answers are what we, as sales people, are about—we look for answers from our customers, “What do they think of our solutions?” “When will they place an order”” “What does it take to win their business?” We’re hungry for answers to those questions. We, also, have answers for our customers.–even before they’ve posed the questions. But answers are meaningless without great questions and great understanding. As sales people, we’re trained to ask questions—usually these are focused on eliciting the responses that allow us to start “pitching.” But these aren’t the questions customers are most concerned about, they don’t generate the answers […]