Topgrading for Sales Book Review

The Topgrading team sent me a copy of their newest book “Topgrading for Sales” to review. The book focuses on recruitment, an area in which I have very little experience. However, I think the book is relevant to this blog; incentive compensation is one way to increase your workforce performance, but at the root, it is important to hire top sales representatives.

When I first picked up the book, my first thought was – wow, this book is only 57 pages, 113 pages counting the appendix. However, when I opened the book I quickly realize that while it is small in size, it is heavy in content.

Topgrading for Sales promotes the Topgrading philosophy, to only hire “A Players” A definition of top performers and an explanation of the general concept is provided in the first chapter, and the following chapters detail methods to interview, hire and coach top sales reps. The appendix includes practical templates to topgrade your sales force.

Here is a quick summary of the proposed steps to increase hiring success:

• Construct a sales rep score card to know which skills and attributes are required (what needs to be done)
• Analyse your sales team and determine what your top performers have in common, as well as what your bottom performers have in common.
• Create a list of prospects
• Ask good phone screening questions (many good examples are provided in the book)
• Screen finalist candidates rigorously
• Perform a reference check after the interview and contact all supervisors in the past 10 years
• Coach your sales reps regularly

This book is extremely practical. It provides many great tools and ideas to hire top sales representatives and the general concept can be taken beyond the “sales world”.

However if you don’t have prior experience in recruitment, other books will be required to build a solid foundation in some of the many areas touched by this book such as interviewing and coaching.

Offshore Outsourcing – Humor of the Week

Here is one of my favorite Dilbert strip:

A friend also sent me this funny conversation between a consultant and an offshore resource:

Consultant: So, today is the checkpoint for the designs, status should be on 90% completed, meaning everything’s done and waiting for final review. Are you finished?
Inder: Yes, I put the status on 90% completed
Consultant: Ok, let’s have a quick look at the document. Well… the document is basically empty? How can you put it on 90% completed?
Inder: Yes, document is empty – but it’s all in my head!

In Summary:

• The communication infrastructure in some countries can be unreliable.
• Risks associated to offshoring should be identified early.
• Expectations need to be set and communicated clearly.

The Sales Manager and the Bear

Once in a while I review the statistics for this blog to find out which keywords people use to find me. Surprisingly, people often find this blog when looking for funny sales compensation jokes. Here is a good one for your enjoyment.

The Sales Manager and the Bear
A sales manager and an operation manager went bear hunting. While the operation manager stayed in the cabin, the sales manager went out looking for a bear. He soon found a huge bear, shot at it but only wounded it.

The enraged bear charged toward the sales manager, who started running for the cabin as fast as he could. He ran pretty fast but the bear was just a little faster and gained on him with every step. Just as he reached the open cabin door, he tripped and fell flat.

Too close behind to stop, the bear jumped over him and went rolling into the cabin. The sales manager jumped up, closed the cabin door and yelled to his friend inside, “You skin this one while I go and get another!”

Source: http://www.workjoke.com/projoke60.htm (Not all jokes here are politically correct)