These are articles we have written
or that have been written about our work. Most are presented in html versions or PDF
versions which can be downloaded for easier reading. Adobe Acrobat reader is required for
the PDF versions. This can be downloaded at no charge from Adobe's
web site.

High Performance Sales, 10 Things Customers Must
Worry About: Dave Brock's annotated keynote
presentation from Microsoft's Dynamic Business Week conference on June
15, 2010.
Sales Manager's Guide To Coaching Opportunities:
How does a manager leverage the sales process to coach their people,
while assuring each strategy is a winning sales strategy. This
guide offers pragmatic advice for managers.
Sales
Process Self Assessment: A strong selling process,
effectively executed is the cornerstone to driving sales productivity.
Get Partners In EXCELLENCE Sales Process Self Assessment tool to look at
your selling process. To request this, please click on this link:
Sales
Process Self Assessment.
Survey on the Importance of Partnering and
Alliances in Customer and Supply Chain Relationships: This
provides an executive summary of a market survey conducted in May/June
of 2009. Alliances are critical to growth in the current economy.
Sales Leaders Organizational Self Assessment:
This article provides pragmatic
guidance to sales managers to make sure they and their teams are
performing to the highest levels. Readers can also get an expanded
version of this sent to them as a self audit tool. To request
this, please click on this link:
Sales
Management Checklist.
Selling Through The Slump, An Industry Playbook:
This is an amazing free eBook,
written by 11 industry experts, including Dave Brock, offering pragmatic
sales advice for selling in the downturn.
Partnering For Profitability E-Book:
This is a collection of articles and resources on
developing, implementing, and managing strategic partnerships,
alliances, channels, and joint ventures. Click on this link to
request the E-Book.
Value Proposition E-Book:
This is a collection of articles and resources on
developing and communicating differentiated value propositions.
Click on this link to request the E-Book.
Things Are
Changing: Partners In EXCELLENCE Update
An update on new hires and partnerships we have formed as well as a
quick update on the importance of Social Media and Networking.
Guidelines For
Giving And Receiving Effective Feedback:
This is a classic article by Dr. George Lehner
which provides guidelines for improving the effectiveness of giving and
receiving feedback. It is a must read for any manager or leader.
Technology Companies Must
Follow The Fashion Leaders:
Technology companies can learn a lot by looking at
the business models and processes of fashion industries. This
paper examines these issues.
Balanced Business Performance:
This white paper addresses many
disciplines required for outstanding business performance. We
believe organizations cannot focus on a single element, like execution
or strategy to sustain the highest levels of performance, but must
balance their approach across several key areas.
Partner Profitability, Are Your Partners
Performing To Their Potential? Quantity is
not quality in developing and managing channel and partner performance.
This article examines critical issues to managing profitability in your
partnering relationships. It addresses challenges and solutions
for each player in the partnering relationships.
Please Make Your Phone System Even Less Responsive, I Might Be A
Customer!! Often the first contact customers have
with a company is through the phone. However, navigating many
company phone systems is frustrating and complex. Some customers
are taking their business elsewhere.
Stupid Marketing Tricks and
Other Topics: Spammers and other so-called marketers
are causing many organizations to lower their standards and
professionalism in their marketing programs. "Dumbing down"
marketing programs and materials does not create the desired results.
This article discusses the challenges and solutions.
Powerful
Partnering -- WIIFM: Too often we approach
partnerships focusing only on what we get out of it. As a result,
many partnerships fail. This article discusses approaches to
building powerful partnerships.
Turning the Crank On Channel
Performance, 1 to 1 Partner Management
Companies have developed very sophisticated
partner and channel management programs. This article discusses
moving the bar higher in managing channel partner performance.
Issues Impacting Personal
Sales Effectiveness:
This is a summary of a research study
conducted by Partners In EXCELLENCE. Several hundred sales people
were interviewed and the results published in this report. An
executive summary of the findings and recommendations is available.
When The Going Gets
Tough, The Tough Get Selling!
The strength of
true sales professionals comes through in tough economic times. This
article examines the characteristics of these professionals.
Taking
Your Hiring and Recruiting To The Next Level, Leveraging Behavioral
Assessments! Understanding what
drives the behavior of each person in the organization is critical to
achieving performance excellence. This white paper discusses the
role of behavioral assessments in helping to improve recruiting and
hiring.
Do You Know What Your
Sales People Are Doing? Are They Doing What You Want Them To Do?
Assessing the performance of your sales people and
coaching them for continuous improvement is critical to building high
performance sales teams.
Is There Real Value In Your Value
Proposition? Getting beyond the hype in developing and
delivering real value to your customers.
The Ultimate Buying
Experience! Unfortunately the company promising the Ultimate
Driving Experience does not provide a great buying experience. A
tale of customer satisfaction run amuck.
Your Sales
Organization Is Your Key Differentiator. In today's
competitive world, the service provided by your sales professionals can be
one of the most important and sustainable differentiators with your
customers.
Things I've
Learned About Sales Along The Way.
This is a copy
of a presentation given by Dave Brock to the CEO's of portfolio companies
for one of Europe's leading venture capital firms.
Surviving Tough
Times, Things We've Learned.
The bad economy and markets challenge everything we have done in the past.
Surviving these times requires tough action.
Sales Management 101, Conducting
Powerful Sales Review Meetings Stop wasting your time
on meaningless reviews. Conduct reviews that help you and your sales
people be more productive and win more!
Customer
Satisfaction—80% Of It Is Just Showing Up!
Customer Satisfaction and Service are falling to all time low
levels. This article reviews a few key issues in making it easy for your
customers to buy.
Is
Managing The Organization A Puzzle? Have a little fun
putting the pieces together.
It's
Not Rocket Science: Let's face it, there really
isn't much new in professional selling. This article explores
"Dave's Top 10" characteristics of great sales professionals.
Improve
Your Odds-To-Win Each Sales Opportunity: Most
sales people guess the probability of winning each deal, or worse say what
their manager wants. This article provides a fact based approach to
determining the Odds-To-Win.
Time
Management – Now More Than Ever:
Key to improving
productivity and effectiveness is working smart. How sales
professionals spend their time can have dramatic impacts on sales results.
It's
The Strategic Planning Season, Again:
Are you wasting time, resources and money with an ineffective
strategic planning process? This article highlights pitfalls in
strategic planning and suggest remedies that improve the results.
Channel
Design Starts With The Customer,
Creating
High Performance Sales Channels.
This
article focuses on designing your sales channels to reach your customers
most effectively, maximizing the results produced by whatever sales and
distribution channels you implement.
Stop
Winging It To Reduce Your Sales Cycle By 50%,Guaranteed!
This
article provides the sales professional tools to dramatically reduce the
number of calls to close.
How Do I Make My Quota, Territory
Management Planner, Part 1. This article provides the sales
professional a simple tool to help assess their territory potential and
better manage their time in achieving their quotas.
Creating Effective Strategic
Partnerships. This article addresses the critical success factors
required in creating effective strategic partnerships. It identifies
five key areas for success: shared resource, risk, reward, values
and vision as critical to achieving the goals of the partnership.
Getting The Most From
Your New Product Introductions. Over 40% of new product introductions fail to
achieve their objectives. This article highlights critical success factors in
maximizing the impact and potential success of your new products. It focuses on the
sales and marketing actions during the launch.
The Secrets
Of Closing The Sale. This is a copy of a
presentation presented in October, 1998 to the MIT Enterprise Forum. This
presentation was to the CEO's and top management of a number of high technology start-up
companies. It addressed the importance of focusing on the customer needs and
priorities in closing sales. The message is useful to all.
Building
Successful Channel Strategies. This is a copy of the presentation given to over
100 CEO's of European High Technology companies at the European-American Venture Capital
Conference '98 in San Francisco. While focusing on their specific requirements, the
message is useful to all sales executives.
Ready, Fire, Aim: Who Cares About Having A Selling
Process? This article demonstrates the value of using the sales
process to identify opportunities to rapidly grow the business. It presents a simple
technique for identifying and developing your own selling process.
The Direct Route To Closing More Sales,
Faster, Through Mapping The Customer Decision-Making Process: This article provides
a tool that improves the ability of salespeople to identify their customer's
decision-making process, accelerating the selling process.
"Hello,
You've Reached The Office Of..." This article provides tips and
strategies for exploiting Voicemail as a powerful sales tool. Rather than yielding to the
inevitable frustration we experience with Voicemail, leave your customer a powerful
message.
Focus
On Your Customer's Need To Buy, Not Your Need To Sell: The challenge
many sales professionals face is staying customer focused. This
article provides tools to help maintain a strong customer focus in all
selling activities.
Know Thy Customer To Grow Your
Sales: This article by Dave Brock introduces Partners In EXCELLENCE proprietary
Customer Knowledge Assessment. Many organizations do not know who their customers
are and why they buy. This article provides techniques enabling significant revenue growth
by better understanding and servicing existing customers.
Kodak Tries A New Focus:
This article highlights the challenges Kodak faced in the most massive product launch it
has had in the past 30 years. It addresses the issues of developing a worldwide training
strategy for its sales people and dealers. It highlights the role of Partners In
EXCELLENCE in developing and implementing these programs for Kodak. The article originally
appeared in the May 1996 issue of Training Magazine. It is presented with their
permission.
Kodak Focuses On Counter
Personnel to Sell Advanced Photo System: This article provides a review of the training
programs developed by Partners In EXCELLENCE to develop the knowledge and skills needed to
successfully explain the value and benefits of the Advanced Photo System to consumers. It
was written by Harvey Phillips of the Eastman Kodak Company and appeared in Photo Trade
News in March 1996. It is presented here with their permission.
TQ(S)M-Total Quality (Sales)
Management - Squared This article provides experiences in implementing Total Quality
Management programs in the selling organization and the impact these programs have in
improving customer satisfaction, sales performance and sales results. It was written by
Dave Brock and appeared in Sales and Marketing Executives Focus magazine in July 1995. It
is presented with their permission.
TQ(S)M-Total Quality (Sales)
Management This article provides perspectives on the importance of integrating quality
management principal into sales. It was written by Paul Varga, President of Service
Graphics in Cleveland. It appeared in Sales and Marketing Executives Focus magazine in May
1995. It is presented with their permission.
COE Ten Years After This
article provides a humorous retrospective on the formation of the CATIA Operators
Exchange. CATIA is a premier CAD/CAM/CAE design tool developed by Dassault Systemes in
Paris, France. It was used extensively as the engineering design tool for the Boeing 777.
The article was written by Dave Brock and appeared in the CATIA Users Update Summer/Fall
1995 edition. It is presented with the permission of COE.
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