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David Weisburd : The Life of a Businessman: Spin Selling A Players

Luckily I was in the country at the time and managed to arrange a get together of a few ex Xerox sales staff.
We all worked at Auckland branch in the early seventies (you can tell by the age)!

From the left: Dave Perry, Steve Jones, Ray Duncan, Steve Hilliar, Ken Arnold

There is a fantastic book available right now for employers who require real hot sales staff. It is called “Top Grading for sales”. The book has been written by Bradford D Smart (phd) and Greg Alexander.

The book provides world class methods to interview, hire and coach top sales representatives.

Great sales companies do not just depend on strategies, they depend on hiring those very best salespeople who belong to an elite group. A group who are skilled in asking questions rather than telling selling.

The book “Top Grading for Sales” takes the guess work out of hiring, by teaching sales managers how to recognize those high producers. In other words A players “High Talent” salespeople. It also shows how to turn some B players into A Players and at the same time weed out C players before they do too much damage.

Brad Smart’s previous book “Topgrading”, has become the definitive guide for managers who want to hire, coach and train top talent. Now Smart has teamed up with with greg Alexander, who used Topgrading to dramatically improve his saleforce at EMC.

In Topgrading for Sales, they have boiled down the key topgrading ideas while adapting them to the unique needs of sales managers.

The book is straightforward, easy to follow and if used correctly will vastly improve any sales force. Using the methods and tools provided throughout this book should double your percentage of high performing sales reps.

There are forms and guides available to help sales managers assess current sales reps, obtain all relavent career history from candidates, and effectively hire A Players who will become long term sales stars.

It is a known fact these sales people are few and far between. Neil Rackham of Huthwaite Research discovered this back in the late 1960’s and consequently he has written and released a number of important and best selling sales books such as “Spin Selling” and my all time favorite “Making Major Sales”.

This new book “Topgrading for Sales” by Bradford Smart and Greg Alexander falls into the same important category as Rackham. It is an absolute must for any sales organization. Topgrading will save companies wishing to employ high performing sales reps an immense amount of time and agony if they study the methods available to them in this fine sales manual.
As professional sales companies or professional sales teams, marketing managers, sales managers or in fact anyone who makes sales should own a copy of “Topgrading for Sales” and be guaranteed the opportunity to double their sales for the cost of a few cups of coffee.
The Topgrading Website is here:

1. They do not write their goals out and keep them where they can be seen.

2. They do not plan to achieve anything.

3. They do not commit or live up to the promises they make.

4. They do not make goals that were achievable right from the start.

There needs to be a measurement device in place so you can track your progress. You must start from what your needs are, where you want to go and then figure out what it takes to get there.

In my complete and forthcoming digital sales course “Right from the Start” there will be a complete section on this most important activity with all the required templates to enable you to achieve exactly what you want.