Dave Brock
Location-Based Prospecting? Are Ad-Hoc Sales Calls Valuable?
I’ve been intrigued about much of the publicity around Hoover’s Near Here offering. Apparently it’s an Iphone based application for a sales person to find new prospects close to them–wherever they might be. I’m certain this is the first of many new services that...
High Performance Sales Driven By High Performance Sales Managers
Much is written about getting sales people to perform at the highest levels. There are countless sales training programs, books, blogs and webinars that focus on sales people as individual contributors. All of this is powerful and critical for sales people, but the most important...
Will Your Sales Defy Gravity?
Note: This post originally appeared as a guest post in Rebel Brown’s Rebelations Blog. Rebel’s book, Defy Gravity, will be published soon. It’s an outstanding and pragmatic guide to developing and executing business strategies. Our guest post today comes from David A Brock, CEO of...
Did You Hear The One About 4 Blind Men And The Elephant?
There’s the old story about 4 Blind Men, one on each side of an elephant, each is asked to feel the elephant in front of them and describe what they “see.” You know the story, each describes the elephant differently because they each had...
The Coming Extinction Of The Lone Wolf!
We all know the concept of the “Lone Sales Wolf.” That’s the person sales person that works by themselves managing the territory. Typically, we think of them as cold calling experts, acquiring new customers, building relationships to the level needed to acquire the customer,...
What Should Salespeople Be Doing With Social Media
Social media is changing the way our customers buy and the way in which we engage our customers. Before customers even see us for the first time, they have a great deal of information—not necessarily knowledge—about our company, our products, and our competition. I...
Being “Tactegic”
Earlier this week, I participated in a series of reviews with a sales team. Each sales person was presenting their key deals and what they were doing to win. I was uncomfortable in much of the meeting, but had trouble putting my finger on...
Know Thy Audience!
The other day, I wrote about how even the best of us are seduced into pitching–perhaps when something else might be more appropriate. At the same time, the pitch–or presentation of your solution is important. Too often, however, we don’t have the impact we...
Even The Best Of Us Can’t Resist The Urge To Pitch!
Recently, I participated in a “discussion,” with a group of people I deeply respect. All of them were heavy hitters and well respected in their disciplines, I was almost embarrassed to be part of such a distinguished group. The topic was a discussion about...
Getting Personal About Metrics
Sales managers spend a lot of time talking about metrics. They measure everything–some good, some over measured, but some micromanaged. There’s a lot of focus in the Sales 2.0 world about metrics, but again, most of the discussion is how to help sales managers. ...
Is Sales Getting Soft?
Many regular readers may be a little surprised about this post. I’ve been very vocal about sales being consultative, customer focused, and creating value for the customer in their buying process. I’ve been (and continue) to be very much against the old line “hard...
It’s So Simple, I Don’t Know What To Buy!
Disaster struck this morning, went to the office and the network was down. Technical guy that I am, I went through my diagnostics, called my ISP and started yelling at customer service (It always seems to be their fault). Ooops, turns out my router...
Waiting It Out Is Not A Strategy For Success!
I have to admit to being a little bit more than impatient–my wife says I have to be more tolerant. But there are conversations that just drive me up the wall—-”We’ll just wait it out” is one of those conversations that drives me crazy. Over...
Knowing About Your Customer Is Not Enough
Everyone in sales knows that it’s important to know your customer. Sales people keep all sorts of information, both on individuals and the enterprises. We know about the likes and dislikes of the people we sell to–those that we deal with every day. We know...
Penny Wise, Dollar Foolish
My friend Skip Anderson wrote an outstanding post, “The Race To Sale Competence, A Case For Sales Training.” He raises a critical issue: As sales managers, are we so focused on managing expense that we lose sight of the opportunity? Skip speaks to the issue…
Execution Is The Hard Part!
The phone rings, it’s a concerned executive. After pleasantries, we get down to the issues. Usually it goes something like this: “Dave, I’m worried about our business strategies. I’m not sure our strategy is right, we need to look at developing a new strategy and...
Persuasion
Persuasion—it’s important to sales. It’s important to business. When we want to change something, we can’t do it without persuasion. Persuasion is a simple word, but somehow in the context of “selling” it becomes vile–it sets people off. It brings up all the worst stereotypes...
Sourcing Future Sales Leaders
A few weeks ago, I got a call from Howard Stephens, Chairman and CEO of HR Chally. He wanted to talk to me about one of his passions, sales education in our colleges and universities. He gave me some interesting data. (I may have...
The World’s Greatest Salesperson – A Culture Of Pitchmen?
There has been such a great discussion going on at my last post on this topic. If you’ve missed it, you should look at it, The World’s Greatest Salesperson. The discussion in the comments is better than the post itself. As I read the stream...
How Would I Sell A Brick?
Well, I created a lot of discussion about OgilvyOne’s contest to find the world’s greatest sales person in my post . We’ve started a great discussion about professionalism in sales. But the competitor in me has been whispering in my ear, “How would you sell...