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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
On Planning And Preparation
Anyone who has spent any time with me knows that I’m focused on planning and preparation. Whether it is applying design thinking to the next meeting with a customer, or a manager doing a pipeline review, or developing and executing a deal plan; I am hard over on planning and preparation. I can quote all sorts of statistics on the difference in results produce by those who plan and prepare, and those that wing it. But sometimes, we lose track of how really important and impactful it is. Sometimes, it takes a radically different experience to remind us of how […]
“Getting Back Out There”
I have to admit, I’m going stir crazy. My days are filled with back to back Zoom, Team, Skype meetings. I’m “connecting” with people, perhaps more than before. But I’m longing to jump on a plane and go to a face to face meeting. There’s something about physical presence that virtual meetings cannot replace, at least yet. There’s something about the “action,” or perception of action that accompanies F2F meetings. But I’m not going to jump on a plane or go to a physical meeting for some time. It’s a number of issues, first and foremost is safety–both mine and […]
Longing For “Getting Back To Normal”
So much of what I hear and read focuses on “getting back to normal,” or “the good old days (pre-pandemic).” It’s stunning how short our memories are. Reflecting back, as little as six months ago, “normal” wasn’t so great. The “good old days,” weren’t very good. Think about it: The majority of sales people were not making quota. The majority of customer buying journeys ended in “no decision made.” Customers weren’t returning phone calls, not wanting to engage sales people. The “safest” course of action, for many was the “status quo.” Why would we long for those times? If there […]
“…. More Challenging Than I Expected….”
Just got a note from a good friend. About 6 months ago, he and I discussed a new job he was considering. It was a dream job, he accepted it. He reached out the other day to catch up and get some coaching. A phrase in his note struck me, “….It’s more challenging than I expected….” My knee jerk reaction was, “Fantastic!” Isn’t that what we want with every new role we step into? Don’t we want something that’s “more challenging than expected?” Think about it, one of the key ways we learn, grow, and develop is to do things […]
Leadership In Crises
The past weeks and month have been, interesting. (If ever there was an understatement). In times of crises, we all look for leadership. We seek understanding, caring, answers, support, direction. As usual, in times of crises, it’s amazing and truly heartening to see how leaders and leadership emerge. So often, it’s from the most unexpected people and places. We see leaders emerging from our neighbors, friends, community, colleagues. We see leadership from people not in leadership roles or positions of power. But from people who care, who take responsibility, who are driven to action. It’s been fascinating to watch the […]
Are You Being Helpful?
We tend to overcomplicate things, particularly selling and leadership. Billions are spent on training of all sorts. Billions are spent on tools, content, consultants. Each has their own approach, models, techniques. Each emphasizes certain things. We might focus narrowly on prospecting, or account planning, or developing better deal strategies. Some focus on skills like objection handling, closing, negotiation. Some might have broader approaches like solution, consultative or insight selling. All of these focus on how we succeed as sales people or leaders. Likewise, the tools. programs, and other things we buy and deploy are generally focused on helping us be […]