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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
Helping Your Customer Navigate Their Own Organization
We tend to take for granted that our customers know how to buy. We think they know who should be involved and why. We assume they know how to get approval, how to contract, how to issue an order. The reality, unless they are in a role where they are buying frequently, they don’t know these things–yet we assume they do. Too often, our customers get derailed in their buying journey, they want to buy, they need to buy, but they don’t know how to navigate the process and the hurdles put up by their own organizations. We know the […]
“They Are Just Cars, The Sales Process Is The Same…..”
Imagine talking to a bunch of car sales people. Imagine making the claim, “Selling cars is the same, regardless of the vehicle, they are all cars.” In the audience you have people selling Honda’s, Toyota’s, Nissan’s, Renault’s, Kia’s, Ford’s, Chevrolet’s, Jeep’s. Porsche’s, Ferrari’s, Rolls Royce’s, BMW’s, Mercedes’, McLaren’s, and Bugatti’s. It’s true, they are all cars, they get you from point A to point B (some faster than others). But that’s where the similarity ends. The target customers for these are very different, their reasons for buying are very different, the “problem” they are trying to solve is very different. […]
Problem Focused Growth
I wrote about Product Led Growth. It’s the latest hot new strategy being promoted by many SaaS companies and VC’s. It’s not a new strategy, we’ve seen it so often in the past, companies with Hot Products focused just on fulfilling customer demand. In past decades we’ve seen both the pros and cons of product led business models. In the article on PLG, I focused on some of the promise, as well as the problems/challenges with this business model. It’s ironic, as we reflect on this, the problem with so much of our go to customer strategies is that too […]
Product Led Growth
The SaaS world has “discovered” a something new to drive revenue growth. They’ve labeled this innovative approach, “product led growth.” This has led to gems of “wisdom,” “PLG is an end user focused growth model that relies on the product itself as the primary driver of customer acquisition…. PLG companies are able to grow faster and more efficiently by leveraging their products to create a pipeline of active users that are converted to paying customers.” Wow! What amazing insight! Imagine that, “hot products win!” What an amazing discovery! As I read all the insights and discoveries around product led growth, […]
“I’d Love To Learn More About Your Business….”
Daily, I get inundated with emails, texts, social media messages: “I’d love to learn more about your business and hiring needs….” “Let me know how I can help you…” “Can we collaborate in some way? We provide…….” “How are things going for you?” (WTF!) “How has business been for you during Covid? Are you staying busy?” “Who schedules your calls?” “I’m wondering if you need….” “Are you interested in…..Book a meeting with me….” “Can you share your challenges and priorities? You can schedule a meeting with me on ….” “Are you looking for wins…..” (I responded that our win rate […]
Rethinking The Sales Process
Preface: It’s always dangerous to preface an article with a warning. This is a long article. In some ways, I’m writing it to help clarify my own thinking. We are seeing a profound shift in buying, with customers preferring digital engagement channels to sales engagement. I am beginning to explore what this means for our overall engagement strategies, moving from a sales led, digitally supported to a digitally led, sales supported process. For those of you who make it through this, I’d love your feedback and ideas. This will become increasingly important for all of us in the coming years. […]