Dave Brock

It’s hard not to be drawn into a conversation about Social Business.  Everyone seems to be talking about it.  Usually, one to two sentences into the conversation the focus is on, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Piinterest, LinkedIn, how many followers, how do generate likes, and on and on and on…….

We also seem to think social business is “new.”  I think it’s because whenever we talk about social business, it seems to be so closely intertwined with technology and social media.  But social business has been with us virtually since there has been commerce and trade.

The problem is Social Business is really not about technology.  Social business is more about a “frame of mind.”  It’s about the most basic principles of how we work.  Social business is really about people (but I guess the term People Business isn’t sexy enough).  To be “social in business” means that we focus on people.  Within our companies, being social mandates shared...

The funnel/pipeline is a key tool for sales people and managers to assess performance.  It provides so many insights beyond knowing whether you will make your sales goals.

One of the first things I look at on any new project is the pipeline.  It tells me so much about the organization or the sales person.  It’s one of the most powerful tools available to sales professionals, but too many fail to understand it.

A couple of years ago, I was called into a large technology company.  “Dave, our folks just don’t know how to close!  We’ve got lots of deals, but we aren’t able to move them into closing.  We need help!”   I asked the usual questions, “What’s the funnel coverage?”  The response–”Oh, it’s great–we have a great funnel, we have plenty of opportunities to chase after, that’s not our problem, it’s a closing problem.”

I followed with questions about win rates, velocity, cycle time, average transaction value.  The...

Sales managers have a great deal of influence on the behavior of their people just by the questions they ask.  Any self respecting sales person doesn’t want to look like a fool to the manager.  So if you consistently ask certain questions, they will quickly understand and come prepared to answer the questions.

So that’s the good news ……  and the bad news.

It turns out, too often, managers are asking the wrong questions and, as a result, driving the wrong behaviors with their people.  One of the biggest mistakes are the two questions, too many managers ask over and over:  “When are you getting the order?  How much will it be?”

We know the behavior that drives in sales people, they immediately go to their customers asking, “When am I going to get the order and how much?”  They may soften it with the excuse, “My manager’s putting me under a lot of pressure!”

So if we know our questions, as managers, are...

I recently read a quite interesting blog post entitled, “The Secret Sauce To Sales Enablement–Knowledge Management.”  The post was quite interesting, but the title bothered me.  I reflected on a lot of what I’ve seen written about sales enablement.  There are rich, well thought out architectures, frameworks, tools.  They cover everything from soup to nuts.

There are slight differences–if you are a tool vendor, you talk about technology and tools and how they facilitate the effective and efficient delivery of content.  Others tend to approach it at a slightly higher level, talking about rich hierarchies of structures, content, systems, tools, and programs.  They have endless lists of things that are very valuable and to help enable sales professionals.

But as I look at all of these, somehow something seems missing.  Don’t get me wrong, I think these things are very powerful, very thoughtful, and very well done.  But somehow, it all...