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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
The World’s Greatest Salesperson!
My colleagues have been talking about OgilvyOne’s contest to find the world’s greatest salesperson. I was curious about it, went to the website to read the press release and to their YouTube Channel to learn more. It’s an intriguing notion. I have to bow to the wisdom of Ogilvy, after all they are a prestigious advertising firm, they must really understand sales. The Chairman of OgilvyOne, Brian Fetherstonhaugh, has said, “In marketing, the noble craft of salesmanship sometimes, gets lost in the pursuit of art or the dazzle of technology.” Cool–I can’t disagree with this. Executive Creative Directof, Mat Zucker, […]
What Are The Biggest Challenges Facing Sales VP’s In This Economy
I had hoped we were beyond the, “How do we cope with this economy” questions. However, I recently had the question, “What are the biggest challenges vice presidents of sales and marketing face in this economy?” Implicit in the question is the challenges have changed because of the economy. It’s clear, sales and marketing executives face a lot of challenges, but I don’t think the challenges are different than those that existed before the downturn. What the economy has done is brought many of them into sharper focus or raised their importance to executives. Sales and marketing executives have always […]
Coaching The Sales Process
I’m getting all kinds of messages and emails. I must be wearing people down with my incessant pleas for organizations to update their sales processes–to make them really work, to assure they reflect current realities, priorities, markets, and competition. A number of sales managers have contacted me asking for further guidance. Last week, I got an email, saying, “Dave, I buy what you are saying. I want to make certain my team is executing the sales process as effectively as possible. What should I be doing to make certain they are doing this? How do I fit this coaching into my already […]
What I’ve Been Missing About The Selling Process
Regular readers know the sales process and its importance to sales performance excellence is one of my soapboxes. But in my zeal to talk about the sales process, I’ve forgotten a key point. My friend, Don Perkins, reminded me of this in an important blog post: A Lesson From Dad-Always Teach Principles Along With Processes. Don’s absolutely on target. In my rants about the sales process, I’ve often forgotten to talk about the principles behind the process. I think all of us fall victim to the same thing at different points in time. We become so focused on a certain […]
What Do Formula 1 Drivers and Great Sales Professionals Have In Common?
For sometime, I’ve been haranguing readers about the importance of the selling process. Even in a recent post, I considered use of the sales process as a condition of continued employment. I’m not softening my position on this, the sales process is the cornerstone to personal and organizational performance excellence in selling. However, the posts have generated a good amount of discussion and emails. Some have suggested the process removes creativity and innovation. Some have said the highly scripted nature of a sales process is not conducive to the highly customer focused/responsive approach to selling we need to be executing. […]
Three Card Monte–Social Media Style
Everyone knows the classic con game, called Three Card Monte. It’s a card game where the dealer rearranges cards (usually on a cardboard box to aid in escaping) in an attempt to confuse the player on the location of a specific card. The player guesses which of three cards is the designated card, if he is right, he wins the bet. It’s a classic con, in Manhattan, you can see it on virtually any street corner in midtown. It’s an easy game, it’s easy to be sucked in, and the dealer always wins. There are three roles in Three Card […]