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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
Sales Specialists And The Account Manager, Why Is There Conflict?
Sales specialists or overlay reps are critical in complex B2B sales. The sales specialist is just what the name implies–a specialist in a certain area. It could be a product line, a market segment, a solution offering. Typically, sales specialists have very deep knowledge and experience in whatever they specialize in. Sales specialists are very important in sales organizations and critical to account and territory managers. As our products and solutions become more complex, as they broaden, it is impossible for the account or territory manager to have deep knowledge in all the solutions. Yet too often, I see conflict […]
Giving Thanks
Today is Thanksgiving in the US. That always drives a huge number of posts on gratitude and thankfulness, including this one. However, it strikes me as being a little discordant with what we should be doing. Rather than reserving a specific day to reflect and be thankful, we need to create a habit of giving thanks and recognition every day. Our people, our customers, our suppliers, our business partners, our colleagues, community and, most importantly, our families. Maybe the habit of a daily random act of gratitude–thanking someone who smiles in the store, on the bus, in a restaurant. Imagine if rather […]
Your Ideas Are Worthless!
For that matter, so are your plans and strategies! We spend a lot of time focusing on these activities. We’re proud of our creativity, we’re proud of the work we have done to generate the ideas, plans, and strategies. We’re even protective of them (particularly pundits, consultants, and gurus who go to extremes in “protecting” ideas.). Ideas, plans, and strategies only translate into value for our customers and us in execution. It’s putting them into action, learning, adjusting, tuning, and producing results that drive the value of our ideas, plans, and strategies. Think about it, how many times have you […]
The Power Our Questions Offer Our Customers
Any sales person worth her salt knows how important questions are. They are critical to our success. Effective questioning gives us great insight into what the customer is trying to achieve, their attitudes, their problems and needs (though I know it is no longer “fashionable” to probe for need.). Effective questioning gives us the data we need to develop and position our solutions. Once we know what the customer is trying to achieve and what they want, we can prepare our strategies for presenting the solution and winning the business. But questions are much more important than just giving use the […]
“Content Free” Content
I haven’t whined in a while, so pardon me for this indulgence. We all know that content is critical in engaging prospect and customers. Let me rephrase this, “good content is critical…..” Clearly, organizations are getting the message about content, the problem is they are forgetting to provide the content. A couple of examples, in cleaning out my email this morning, I’ve actually encountered several offers that I’ve found interesting. I dutifully clicked the links to get the information the emails were enticing me with. In the first case, I get to a beautiful landing page. A nice picture, with nothing […]
Metrics, Awareness, And Goal Attainment
For those of you who have followed this blog for some time, you know my obsession with metrics. I measure everything I do, whether it’s work, professional, or personal. I’ve written about how I measure my performance on my bike rides in What We Miss About Sales Metrics. I’ve gone another step in my obsession. I’ve recently gotten a clever device called a Fitbit One (yes, I’m really a gadget freak). While the folks at Fitbit may be appalled with this description, it’s basically a pedometer on steroids. It tracks how many steps I’ve taken, how many sets of stairs I’ve climbed, how far […]