Despite the economy, things have been extremely busy
for Partners In EXCELLENCE. One of the bad things about things being
good is that I neglect communicating with you. I wanted to take an
opportunity to let you know about a few of the things going on with us
and some interesting things we see going on in business.
We’ve been
growing, in people, our collaborations, and our offerings. Some
significant items:
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Mark Steele has joined as a Partner. Mark
is an extremely talented sales, marketing, and product management
professional. He was Vice President of OEM Sales for Motorola and
has held executive positions with Symbol Technologies, Gateway,
Qualcomm, and IBM. Mark is located in Carlsbad, Ca and will be
expanding our normal sales practice, but also growing our business
in advising our clients on developing OEM relationships and Product
Management/Marketing. In just a short time, Mark has added two new
clients, working with them on several major OEM opportunities. Mark
can be reached at
msteele@excellenc.com
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We have established a close relationship with
Feng Yang of Asia Progressive Solutions. Years ago, Feng worked
for me. He is one of the most talented people I have met in
building business in Asia. He has helped a number of organizations
enter the Asian markets, China in particular, and build very strong
businesses. He has worked with others to show them how they can
achieve more in the Asia markets. We have a number of joint
projects going on with Feng. Some are helping organizations improve
the results they achieve in Asia, others are helping some Chinese
companies more effectively enter the global markets. Feng is a
great addition to our team, providing us with hands on capability
and deep relationships in Asia.
-
We have just established a close relationship
with Niall Devitt of Beyond The Boardroom Training in Ireland.
There are a number of opportunities in Ireland and the UK which
require the collected capabilities of our two organizations. Niall
is one of the most thoughtful people I have met on sales performance
and effectiveness. His point of view parallels and complements
ours. We are quite excited about the capabilities we can bring to
organizations in Ireland and the UK.
Last year, I
was invited to become a member of Top Sales Experts. Top Sales
Experts is composed of roughly 60 of the leading independent
consultants, authors, speakers, and trainers in the world. People like
Niall, Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson, Dave Stein, Jonathan Farrington,
and other well known names. I had several reactions to being invited to
join this group. The dominating reaction: I wouldn’t join any club
that would have me as a member (OK—you know my sick sense of humor). It
is actually quite flattering to be a member of this organization—as if
my ego isn’t big enough. The most valuable thing is the dialog we
establish among ourselves on leading practice in Sales, Sales
Productivity, and Sales Effectiveness. These discussions broaden our
points of view and enable Partners In EXCELLENCE to bring much greater
capability to our clients.
Finally, I have
become much more involved in the world of social media. The worlds of
sales and marketing are changing dramatically. Social media and
networking are changing the way we interact with each other and with our
customers. I hold a contrary point of view to some of the zealots
(are you surprised?), I don’t believe social media will displace current
approaches to sales, marketing, and business management. They do
provide a rich collection of tools and capabilities that extend our
reach, impact, and capability. Leading organizations will shift sales
and marketing investments to incorporate social media. Any business
professional and organization that is not experimenting with social
media and networking is missing a major opportunity to grow their
business. Think about it, today, none of us would question the
importance of a website for our companies, or using the web in
researching our customers, markets and competition. Yet only about 15
years ago, the web was not part of our day to day business lives.
As part of this,
I have become an active blogger. In addition to my blog:
Making A Difference, my posts are syndicated in a number of social
media and networking venues including: The Customer Collective, Sales
Management 2.0, The Sales Club, Top Sales Experts, SalesMarks,
EyeOnSales, ManagerPoint (Poland) and others. I post a number of times
a week, and am generating some very interesting debates on many of the
sites (as you know, sometimes I tend to have a bit of a contrarian
perspective). I encourage you to subscribe to my blog and join in the
discussion.
I am also just
starting in the world of Twitter, confirming what many of you may think
of me as a twit. Twitter is an interesting tool, both for increasing
awareness of your offerings, but also for tracking your customers’
views, market views, and those of your competition. You can follow me
at
www.twitter.com/davidabrock.
There are many
more exciting things happening, but this is too long already. We are
involved with you and others in many exciting and innovating projects.
The present economy presents all of us great opportunities to grow our
businesses.
I will be
publishing these updates, focusing on critical issues and solutions more
frequently. I’d appreciate any comments you might have to increase the
value of these updates, please email me at
dabrock@excellenc.com, or just respond to this.
I would be
remiss by not wrapping this up with a big Thank You! Our
inspiration, the great ideas, and outstanding business practices come
from our work with you. I appreciate the opportunity to work and grow
with you. I appreciate our relationship, your advice and support.
Thanks and Best
Regards, Dave