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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
Understanding Our Customers’ Decisionmaking Processes
Understanding how our customer will make a buying decision is critical to our success in selling. It’s common sense, it’s trained into us as entry level sales people, but in my experience, sales people really don’t understand it. Here some examples that have occurred in the last couple of days: I’m reviewing the sales strategy for a very large sales opportunity. I asked the team, “Who’s involved in the decision-making process and how will the customer make a decision?” It was a major enterprise IT software sale, the team immediately pulled out the customer’s organization chart and pointed to the CIO’s […]
Creating Crap At The Speed Of Light
Before starting, I have to admit I’m a bit of a geek. I love technology, I love leveraging the latest tools to help increase my productivity, impact, and effectiveness. I was one of the “first kids on the block” using a PC (must have been IBM Serial Number 005) to help increase my productivity. I started using rudimentary contact management systems in about 1989. Recently I was surprised to learn that I was a relatively early adopter of LinkedIn, being the 67,084 member. I look at and adopt new technologies very quickly. Part of it is my fascination with all […]
Are We Building Our Sales People’s Leadership Capabilities?
More and more the thought of a sales person as an “individual contributor” or “lone wolf” is no longer appropiate in most of today’s B2B sales environments. We all know the profession of sales is going through massive changes. In the past few weeks, I’ve written about Sales Professional 3.0 and Sales At An Inflection Point. Both articles talk about the changes in professional selling (driven by our customers) and the new requirements for success. I’ve not spent a lot of time on the leadership role of sales people in driving these new strategies or the importance of starting to […]
Sales Manager Or Individual Contributor?
In many organizations, sales managers also have a personal sales territory. The practice is not limited to small organizations, I’ve worked with a number of companies in th $500 M range who have some of their sales managers also carry a personal sales territory. In the smallest of organizations, it’s difficult to avoid, but in general, I think it’s a lose-lose practice. The job of the sales manager is coaching and developing their people to achieve the highest levels of performance possible. In smaller organizations, it’s also driving the sales strategy, making sure the right tools, processes, and people are […]
We Have To Invest In Revenue Generation
A key goal of most businesses (profit and not for profit) is revenue generation. After all, without revenue, the business can’t exist. I often talk to entrepreneurs and small business owners about sales–specifically, “How do we afford sales people, how can we afford to invest in sales?” There’s lots of bad advice out there, plenty of people with advice on how to sell for free—I ranted about this yesterday in Can You Afford Not To Invest In Sales? I’m often surprised in speaking with entrepreneurs and small business owners. They don’t hesitate investing in product and service development, they put […]
Can You Afford Not To Invest In Sales?
I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses. A topic that comes up frequently is, “How do I afford a sales person?” My knee jerk reaction is, “How can you afford not to have someone accountable for generating revenue–sales? How canyou afford not to invest in sales” Then I read lots of horrible advice how to sell without it costing you anything (Driving Sales Without Hiring A Salesperson). My reaction is that it’s simply bad, wrong, misleading, and BS! (But I don’t feel strongly about it.) Don’t get me wrong, affordability is an issue with all […]