The Sales Acceleration Formula

Foreword Neil Rackham ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction xv

Part I The Sales Hiring Formula 1

Chapter 1 Uncovering the Characteristics of a Successful Salesperson 3

Chapter 2 Five Traits Great Salespeople Have and How to Interview for Them 11

Coachability 12

Curiosity 16

Prior Success 19

Intelligence 20

Work Ethic 21

Chapter 3 Finding Top-Performing Salespeople 25

Build a Recruiting Agency within Your Company 26

Find Quality Passive Sales Candidates on LinkedIn 28

Find Quality Passive Sales Candidates through Your Team: The “Forced Referral” 33

Understand the Sales Talent Pool in Your Area 33

Chapter 4 The Ideal First Sales Hire 37

Part II The Sales Training Formula 45

Chapter 5 Setting up a Predictable Sales Training Program 47

Defining the Three Elements of the Sales Methodology: The Buyer Journey, Sales Process, and Qualifying Matrix 50

Create a Training Curriculum around the Sales Methodology 53

Adding Predictability to the Sales Training Formula 54

Constant Iteration on the Sales Process 57

Chapter 6 Manufacturing Helpful Salespeople Your Buyers Trust 59

Train Your Salespeople to Experience the Day-to-Day Job of Potential Customers 60

Enable Your Salespeople to Build Their Personal Brand with Potential Customers Using Social Media 62

Part III The Sales Management Formula 67

Chapter 7 Metrics-Driven Sales Coaching 69

Implementing a Coaching Culture throughout the Organization 71

Creating the Coaching Plan Together with the Salesperson 72

Examples of Metrics-Driven Skill Diagnosis and Coaching Plans 74

“Peeling Back the Onion” 79

Measure the Coaching Success 80

Chapter 8 Motivation through Sales Compensation Plans and Contests 83

Criteria to Evaluate a New Commission Plan 88

Involve the Sales Team in Compensation Plan Design 89

Promotion Tiers: Removing the Subjectivity from Promotions and Compensation Adjustments 90

Using Sales Contests to Motivate the Team 93

The Best Contest I Ever Ran 95

Chapter 9 Developing Sales Leaders—Advantages of a “Promote from Within” Culture 97

Prerequisites for Leadership Consideration 102

From the Classroom to the Real World 103

Common Potholes from New Sales Managers 104

Part IV The Demand Generation Formula 109

Chapter 10 Flip the Demand Generation Formula—Get Buyers to Find You 111

How Can Your Business Rank at the Top of Google? 113

This Does Not Happen Overnight 115

Create a Content Production Process 116

Complement Content Production with Social Media Participation 121

Long-Tail Theory 123

Chapter 11 Converting Inbound Interest into Revenue 127

Marketing’s Role in Converting Interest into Revenue 128

Sales’ Role in Converting Interest into Revenue 137

Chapter 12 Aligning Sales and Marketing—The SMarketing SLA 149

The Marketing Service Level Agreement (SLA) 151

The Sales Service Level Agreement (SLA) 154

Part V   Technology and Experimentation 161

Chapter 13 Technology to Sell Better, Faster 163

Accelerate Lead Sourcing with Technology 165

Accelerate Sales Prospecting with Technology 167

Accelerate Lead Engagement with Technology 170

Automated Reporting with Technology 171

Chapter 14 Running Successful Sales Experiments 175

Generating Ideas for Experiments 176

Best Practices of Experiment Execution 178

Chapter 15 HubSpot’s Most Successful Sales Experiments 183

The HubSpot Value Added Reseller (VAR) Program 183

GPCT 186

Chapter 16 Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here? 191

Index 195