Dave Brock

There were a number of questions arising from my, A Virtual Sales MBA Post.  Rather than answer individually, I thought I’d provide a brief post consolidating responses.

Books:  I was asked by a number of people for recommendations on books.  It’s kind of tough, I read a lot.  In virtually every book, I find something worthwhile.  I thought I’d tell you what’s on my iPad and Desk right now.  A few I’ve just completed.  A few, I am re-reading, so I’ll jump around in them, the others, I’ll complete these in the next 4-6 weeks:

Often, I get pushback from folks when I talk about leveraging a sales process, developing and documenting a deal strategy, or researching and preparing for sales calls in advance.  The arguments usually focus in a few areas, “It restrains my creativity,” “It cramps my style,” “Every situation is different.”  The list can go on, but to my mind they are just excuses.

In reality, research, preparation or leveraging a process enables you to get out of your own way.  Preparation enables you to be truly present and participate in the meeting or call, or to be responsive to twists and turns in the sales process.

We see it in virtually every “role play,” or deal review, or in “ride alongs” in participating in sales calls with people.

If people haven’t prepared for the call, if they don’t have a written call plan, they are so focused on figuring out or remembering what they should do next, they aren’t present and participating...

Sales is one of the few professions when we start each new (fiscal) year with a clean slate.  Everything is reset.  Whether we had outstanding success and overachieved are quotas or we struggled and didn’t quite make it, we come into a new year with clean slates.

New quota’s.  Sometimes new territories and customers.  Usually a lot of excitement around new initiatives and programs to help us be more successful.  We may have celebrations—Sales Kickoff Meetings–celebrating the success of the past year and getting excited about the coming year.

It’s a great feeling!

However, in reality, we aren’t starting with a clean slate.  Each of us carries a lot of “baggage” into each new year.  It’s the baggage of habit, comfort, perhaps some overconfidence or complacency.  Some of what is done in Sales Kickoff’s may focus on changing some of this.  But in reality, it becomes very personal.

As professionals, we...

“The beatings will continue until you get is right!”  OK, so I’ve taken a bit of an extreme position, but I’m constantly amazed at how many executives believe that they can mandate their way to performance improvement.

It starts out harmlessly, some policies, some rules.  “Please comply with the following procedures…..”  We’ve all seen them.  Some of us have unwittingly put these in place.  Don’t get me wrong, rules and policies have their place.  But they aren’t the most impactful means of driving and sustaining performance improvement.

Everything starts with basic principles—How do we hold the customer?  How do we feel about teamwork and internal collaboration?  How do we want to be perceived by our customers, employees, shareholders, and community?  What is the customer experience we want to create?  How do we create value?  How do we differentiate ourselves?  What does performance mean in our organization?  I’m sure I can go on....