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:

• 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

• 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