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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
Asking The Right Questions
A few weeks ago, I returned from a long trip. I wasn’t feeling terrific, but chalked it up to jet lag and exhaustion. After a few days, things started getting worse. I was feeling very bad, pains in places I didn’t think I should be having pains. I was in agony, so I started searching the web. Went to the best medical sites, typed in my questions and symptoms, read the responses. Googled my symptoms, read the responses. I was amazed at the depth of information I was getting from the web. All the answers converged on a probable diagnosis, […]
What Would You Do If You Were In Your Customer’s Shoes?
Not long ago, I was in a conversation with the CEO of a professional services company. His team was struggling with getting into the customers and engaging them in conversations about their solutions. “They just don’t want to talk to us about our solutions!” he said. “How do we get them interested?” I actually here the same thing from lots of other people, they struggle with getting the customers to spend time with them. These are sophisticated sales professionals. They have carefully researched their customers, they have relevant references, they have great value propositions, still they can’t get into the […]
Should We Promote Our Best Sales People To Be Sales Managers?
Should we promote our best sales people into sales management? It’s a question that comes up a lot. I’ve written about it as have others. Most people come down on the side that this is a terrible strategy, not only do we lose our best sales people, but they are bad managers–demotivating the team, causing problems, and all sorts of things. I was asked this question in an interview the other day. My response was, “It depends. If your best sales person is the best candidate for the sales management job, it’s probably a great decision.” See I think we look […]
Engaging The Customer 2.0
On October 5-7, there’s a “don”t miss” opportunity for all sales (and marketing professionals, the SalesEdgeOne.com Thought Leader Summit, Engaging Customer 2.0. Social selling and social media is changing about everything we do in working with customers and prospects. No one has the answers, there are great things happening, and much that all of us can learn from and apply in our businesses. This virtual Summit features thought leaders from the Founders Council of CustomerThink’s SalesEdgeOnecommunity. It’s not your normal web conference. It’s two days of high interactivity, panel discussions, Q&A, and discussions with your peers. Join us to learn how to […]
Social Media And The Disintermediation Of Sales People
Recently, I have been in many conversations with people claiming, social media reduces the need to have sales people. Some going so far as to declare the extinction of the sales person. I don’t buy this, in fact, I think it is just the opposite, I think it increases the need for strong sales people engaging their customers in new ways. Social media changes the role of the sales professional, it doesn’t eliminate it. At least in B2B Sales, I believe the role of sales professionals is even more important. Traditionally, sales people served a role of informing and educating […]
More Stupid Selling Tricks
It’s been a while since I’ve had a rant about people who represent our profession poorly. Today, I was a victim of one of the most dishonest and ineffective calls I’ve ever experienced. Not only did the salesperson represent himself dishonestly, but he has given me a negative impression of his company, one of the largest insurance companies in the country. Here’s how the call went: Phone rings, I answer, “Hello, this is Dave Brock.” Confused voice at the other end of the line, “Are you with [such and such a company]?” My antenna go up, he’s referring to the name […]