Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
Sales Performance
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle
Results are about performance. Sustained great results is about maximizing performance over time. The foundation to great performance lies in purpose, culture, values, and leadership. Performing well s developing the right strategies, the right organizational structures, putting the right talent in place, identifying the right processes, programs, systems, tools and metrics. Finally, it is about consistent execution. It’s about organizational and individual habit formation.
We work with clients in all aspects of maximizing performance. Whether it is developing strategies, recommending programs, putting the right structures and talent in place. Developing and implementing the right processes, systems and tools.
It may involve assessing current capabilities, both organizational and individual. Or assessing market and industry changes, developing recommendations for responding to those changes.
Finally, it’s about consistent execution. Training people in what needs to be done and best practices in doing these things. Measuring progress, putting corrective actions in place.
We are a collection of operations focused executives, working with our clients in developing their strategies, putting everything in place to implement those strategies, developing and supporting the change management efforts, supporting and refining the execution, then continuing to refine these to drive constant improvement.
Our goal is to help individuals and organizations to OutPeform their competition.
Sales Performance Posts
Emotions Are A Core Driver For B2B Buyers, What About Sellers?
We have suspected, for years, that B2B buyers make purchase decisions based on how they feel, rationalizing the decision with data supporting those decisions. Scott Gillum, has just published a fascinating piece of research that goes deeper, asking, “What creates these feelings/emotions, how do we address that?” It’s an important read, ‘Emotions’ don’t drive B2B […]
On Sequences And “Touches”
The research tells us we need to be persistent in our outreaches to prospects and clients. To reach and engage them, we have to leverage multiple channels of engagement. Phone, email, social, texts, and other channels must be leveraged simultaneously to provoke a prospect–even a customer to respond. Data shows we often need to reach […]
And We Call This Progress?
This time of year, sometimes we look back to see what’s happened how things have changed and the progress we’ve made. Typically, we look at attainment of annual goals. Questions like, “Will we hit our numbers? Could we have done more or what cause us to miss? Have we built a stronger team, are we […]
The Problem With Inbound
We rely too much on Inbound leads to achieve our goals! Our prospecting strategies are dominated by creating Inbound demand that sellers respond to. Whether it’s emails, social visibility, SEO, or anything else, the focus is on getting buyers to take the initiative to reach us. Inevitably, inbound is never sufficient. We ramp up our […]
What’s This BS About Helping Our Customers?!?!
We read all the time that we are supposed to be helpful to our customers. We have to help them understand the need to change, perhaps inciting them to change. We have to help them through their buying process. We have to help them understand new opportunities, the challenges/risks of change, how to reach consensus……. […]
Are We Creating The Value Our Customers Value?
Selling is about creating value…. Well, yeah, … but we have differing views of value, which often focuses on us and not the value customers need…. To most sellers, it’s fitting the customer’s budget and winning because we might have a few more features than the alternatives, or are cheaper. The customer is very knowledgeable, […]
“Customers Only Spend 5% Of Their Time With Sellers!”
I read a post from a “thought leader.” If focused on how profoundly selling is changing—Wow, I’ve never heard that before. It focused on buyers spending less time with sales people, quoting a Gartner survey, suggesting they get their information from other sources. It concluded that we have to change, that we had to figure […]
Sales Conversations?
Everyday I read articles about how to conduct sales conversations. They get into topics like, “do you start with ‘How are you…,’” They extend into the exact sentence structure, use these words, don’t use these, counter with this, use these pattern interrupts, here are the sequences. There is discussion about authenticity, which often seems to […]
Foundations Of Value Creation
Customers buy value, not price! We know the importance of creating a strong value proposition–something differentiated from the alternatives. Something that has great meaning to the customer. We know that if customers don’t realize that value, we won’t maintain the relationship. They may have remorse with the decision, they may choose not to renew or […]
“You Have To Make Your Number With Only 50% Of Your Current Prospecting Calls!”
We know the incessant mantra around maximizing the number of calls we make every day. We know, almost daily, we have to make more calls than we did yesterday, last week, last quarter. Fewer customers are responding, so to make our numbers, we have to make more calls. What if we tried something different? Let’s […]
Performance Quotes
““Dave helped us translate our strategic planning process from an annual exercise into the development of a plan the whole organization could get behind and execute. With Dave's support, the team came together and established a clear focus and priorities. The team felt the process was valuable in developing a pragmatic plan, focused on executing those things most critical to achieving the objectives our leadership team had established. Finally, the process established a solid framework for future strategic plans. Dave not only delivered on his commitments but delivered more than was expected.” Vice President Strategy and Planning
“I got a recommendation from a business colleague to reach out to Dave regarding our sales process for our startup. So I did and shot out an email where I asked for some tips on how to better leverage our sales process. Dave responded the same day where he asked if we could hop on a call, and of course, I was a bit amazed at his willingness to go head-on with our current challenges. During our conversations, I told him about a recent deal that had stalled and asked if he had any advice on how to get in a better position moving forward. He gave me some good advice and I also got two action points I could execute immediately. The following day I had a client meeting where I held a presentation and I took one of the action points into that meeting. After the presentation was completed I got the deal, and the client highlighted the expertise we had shown with our offer. Dave’s recommendation was perhaps the one thing I felt was the game changer from what we had done in the past.” Eivind Jonassen, Cofounder and CEO
“As a result of the program on Value Propositions, we have turned around and closed sales of more than $60 million within 45 days of implementing the principles you taught us.” Senior Vice President of Global Sales
“We brought David into our company to help us with our sales and go-to market strategies. His thoughtful and systematic approach exposed areas for improvement which resulted with an improved plan. All our employees benefited, especially when each of our team members shared their knowledge and practical experience across our group. We ended up a stronger, more cohesive and focused team due to David's leadership.” Ray Connelly, Vice President of Supplier Strategy
"Partners In EXCELLENCE differentiate themselves from other consulting firms we've used by providing practical implementable deliverables and then providing support and guidance during execution. Most consultants use a canned, one-size-fits-all methodology…. Because Dave Brock has real world experience in sales, marketing and management, his recommendations are tailored to his client's environment and are readily implemented." Vice President, Marketing
“In the past couple of years David has been a critical mentor, coach and partner to me. Throughout our engagements we together developed the Sales Execution Framework (SEF) which has been foundational for the continuous personal and professional development of my team, especially in the areas sales process mechanics, sales process, sales methodology and our operating system. Hands down this is the main reason why we realized high double digit profitable growth in the past couple of years and are confident we can sustain that in the years to come" Rene Voorhorst, Senior Head Global Account Management