The COVID 19 and related issues have brought about a plethora of “Should We Be Selling” articles. I’ve made my position clear in previous posts. But I saw a headline that caught my attention. Should we be selling? The answer is simply, “no”. We should be humanizing. I was struck by this, not for what […]
Dave Brock
Process is the Foundation for Agility/Nimbleness
We want to be flexible, nimble, able to adapt to the circumstances, leap on an opportunity, respond quickly. We abhor process since that constrains our creativity and ability to innovate. Too often, when I talk to leaders and sales people about process, they cite some of the things outlined above as the reason they don’t […]
Confusing Simplification with Simplistic
Both we, our customers, our markets, our worlds are getting more and more complex. We face rapid change/disruption, overwhelm/overload, risk/uncertainty, turmoil, constantly shifting focus/priorities/agendas. In the face of this, we struggle to respond, whether it’s to fix performance problems, address new opportunities, grow and expand. As leaders and business professionals, we must constantly seek to […]
How Does Your Customer Make Money?
Can you answer the question, “How does you customer make money?” By that, I don’t mean at a superficial level, like, “Well, dugghh, Dave, they sell stuff……” I mean really understanding your customer’s business. It includes things like: Who are their customers/markets? What drives success with them? How are those markets growing? How does your […]
The Art of the Bluff
I was stunned and appalled to read an article sponsored by a major sales publication promoting the “Art of the bluff.” The author was cautious to highlight the negative connotations around bluffing—the feeling of manipulation, the proximity to lying, and the knife edge a “bluffer’ must walk to avoid lying. Trying as hard as I […]
Initiative Overload
Individually and organizationally, we are obsessed with getting things done. It’s important, it’s how we learn, grow, and achieve. Too often, however, this obsession is dysfunctional. We overload ourselves and our organizations with too many things—too many “strategic initiatives,” too many meetings, too many “top priorities,” too much activity. Too often, in our quest to […]
How Performance Reviews Can Kill Organizational Culture
I’m an unabashed fan of Shane Parrish and the Farnam Street Blog. I study everything they publish, listen to every podcast, read every article and book they reference. It is the single smartest site I have ever found, I encourage everyone to visit and learn on a regular basis. So it was interesting reading a […]
Sales Managers “Closing Business”
I was struggling to meet with a sales manager. He really wanted to talk, we had critical issues he had asked for help in addressing. He kept postponing our calls, “Dave, I’m running all out, I’ve really got to be out in the field closing business for my people…..” We finally had our meeting. I […]
Deal Strategies: Helping the Customer Buy
Recently I wrote, “What If We Kept The Target Close Date Sacred?” It focused on improving our pipeline management, discipline, and integrity. But the way we address these issues is in our deal strategies and how we engage the customer in each deal. Most of the time and too much of our training focus on […]
The Pipeline Review
I was meeting with a client, we were doing the first pipeline review as part of their implementation of the Sales Execution Framework. Pipeline reviews are a great starting point for the process, a good pipeline review helps identify and isolate potential challenges as well as the performance leverage points. The client was a very […]
