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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
Truth In Advertising — Do You Really Believe The Value You Produce?
I just got an email inviting me to yet another networking site. This was an interesting email, similar to others that I receive. Perhaps this was the straw that broke my back and forced me to comment. This email came from “a friend,” someone I don’t know inviting me to join this website. When you look at the email more carefully, it is part of a blanket email sent by the company trying to recruit members to the site. I find it offensive when companies claim familiarity and a relationship that doesn’t exist. Sending a mail that looked like it […]
The Real Essence Of Strategy
Oren Harari has a great post in his blog on the Real Essence Of Strategy. Simple message, but we forget. “Without a doubt, understanding and coping with competitors is a vital part of competitive strategy. But never forget that the soul of a winning strategy revolves around the pathbreaking value that your organization can create, regardless of what competitors are doing. That’s what excites customers, turns on employees, and brings investors rushing in.”
Fashion In High Technology
I just returned from CES. Not many big stories, though it seems the computer and related technology industries have had an epiphany–fashion in product design is important!!! There was a lot of news about the colors, design, and other factors to increasingly appeal to the sense of fashion. This is not new news! Apple has had tremendous fashion forward design for years (and I’m a PC guy). There have been moments of inspiration in past years. One of the things I think the press has missed, however, is that the while the final form and function are critical deliverables in […]
Prisoners Of Our Own Experience
There was a great article in the New York Times on December 30, Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike. It suggests “as our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off.” While the article focuses on innovation and creativity, we encounter the same issue in our work with clients every day. We all become prisoners of our own experience. By that, the solutions that people look for tend to be the same old solutions that have been used over and over. Organizations and people tend to define their strategies, processes, and approaches to business, based […]
Less Talk And A Little More Conversation
Yesterday I was watching CBS Sunday Morning. One of the segments was on conversation – something this world of technology has helped us lose. Sure there is a lot of “talk” – emails, SMS’s, blogs, countless mobile calls, social networking tools. Words flow between all of us, but are we really communicating — are we having conversations — something where we are engaged, listening, actively participating with someone else? Having a conversation — authentic communication requires a lot of each party. Each person has to commit themselves to the other, at least for a few moments in time. A conversation […]
Being A Good Customer
As a sales professional — sometimes frustrated with certain customers, sometimes I feel like saying: “I’m doing the best I can in selling to you—you need to start being a good customer!!” Actually, that statement is not as arrogant as it sounds. Professional sales people seek to create meaningful value for their customers. They want to establish relationships–partnerships with customers. In today’s tough procurement environment, sometimes customers do themselves a disservice by putting barriers in place so these true value based relationships can be established. I just saw a John Quelch’s blog on Harvard Business Review Online: How To Be […]