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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
Work On Stuff That Matters
Thanks to Jim Estill, I came across this outstanding post by Tim O’Rielly: Work On Stuff That Matters, First Principles. As you read this post, you are reading the fourth re-write. At first I summarized Tim’s post, adding my views. Then I tried expanding on it. As I re-read and edited, I realized I was trying to polish something that didn’t need polishing. Read Tim’s post, it’s important. Then figure out what matters to you and work on it!
Moving From Customer Acquisiton To Customer Engagement
For some strange reason, in the past few days, at least four different executives have called me to speak about changes they see with their customers markets and organizations. The conversations all began at different points, for differing reasons, but seemed to be converging on a central issue: The need for organizations, marketing, and sales to focus on Customer Engagement as critical to success and growth in the future. I have to admit, I am still sorting out some of the issues and what they mean, but some of the things we see are: 1. Traditional means of acquiring customers […]
Stop Assuming You Know Your Customers, Start Listening To Them!
Thanks to one of Fred Wilson’s recent posts, I discovered Whitney Hess, a user experience designer in New York. She was quoted: “In order to survive, companies have to stop assuming they know their customers and start listening to them.” Simple and profound. I spend a lot of my time with business, marketing, and sales executives. Many espouse being customer focused. Many are making good strides, but in my experience we have a long way to go. Whitney’s comment got me thinking. Why is it so difficult to listen to our customers? Why is it so difficult to engage our […]
New Year and Goals
I’ve taken a brief holiday from posting, now am back in full force—partly a reflection of goals I have set for myself, the business, and this blog. Getting started in the New Year had me reflect on setting goals–somehow on January 1, we call them resolutions, the rest of the year they are goals. I am constantly amazed at how casually most people treat goals–particularly those they set for themselves. Rather than repeat what lot of well thought out recommendations and observations, I thought it more useful to point you to some good blog posts on the topic. Seth Godin […]
The Giant Wake Up Call
I’m spending the slow time of the Holidays catching up on neglected reading. I just read (or rather re-read) Peggy Noonan’s opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal: Who We (Still) Are…A Little Perspective For The Pessimistic “Age Of The Empty Suit.” It’s a great piece, you should read it. In reflecting on the article, I agree with her. Despite the litany of bad news from so many sectors, we have so much to look forward to. In the past weeks, I’ve noticed a change in talking to friends, colleagues, and even strangers. I’ve noticed a much greater thoughtfulness. There’s […]
Remembering Deming’s Lessons—Always Important, But Somehow More So Now
Art Petty reminds us in Management Excellence, about Deming’s lessons and their continued currency–particularly in light of the crises in leadership we face. Every time I read Deming, it seems that he is speaking of issues that are critical to leaders and organizations at this very moment, yet the work comes from many years ago. While many other business guru’s come and go like the latest fashions, Deming’s teachings are always important. There is so much of his work that one can cite in a post. Art mentions his theory of Profound Knowledge and 14 Points as good starting points. […]