by Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D., and Greg Alexander One
of the most consistently trying tasks of a sales manager is to hire
the best and the brightest salespeople he or she can find. With the
failure rate of sales reps averaging 40%, hiring new reps is the
most challenging task a sales manager encounters. Do it poorly
and the manager costs his company as much as $600,000 for each mis-hired
rep (with a base of $100,000). Do it right and the sales manager
will hire fewer new reps, reduce training and recruiting costs, and
boost company sales faster than anyone thinks is possible. This is
what Smart and Alexander’s book , Topgrading is all about . Simply stated, it is hiring "A Players," and leaving
the rest to your competitors. This book gets a fast start by giving away the secret sauce on the
first page of the introduction with "The Ten Links in the Hiring
Chain." Every link has a page number reference for forms and
clear how-to-do-it instructions. From a Topgrading Score Card to a
talent review form and ways to analyze mis-hires, the sales manager
that uses these methods will have a clear roadmap to screen and hire
representatives. The
chapters are short, to the point, fast reading nuggets of how to
standardize the process. There are only six chapters and five
appendix’s which have all of the forms you need. The authors
promise that if you use their methods and tools in chapters 1-5 you
will double your hiring success. |