Customer Reviews

Building a Winning Sales Force: Powerful Strategies for Driving High Performance

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Building a Winning Sales Force is a true winner!
You know that one book, the one you go to over and over again. The one you give to a newly promoted sales manager as a congratulations gift? The one you count on like you count on a great mentor? Well this is the one. Now I would never say the "only sales book you'll ever need," but this one comes close and let me tell you why I think so.
* Because it is comprehensive. It covers completely every aspect of handling a sales force. From creating the team to making sure they are the most effective team they can be.
* It describes the best way to measure success.
* The best way to forecast and develop true account plans
* The best training techniques
* The best way to training programs that will work to make your team better and better.
* The most effective way to retain the best sales people once you have trained them to be the best sales force money can buy.
On and on like I said earlier this book has everything you will need to develop, manage, measure and motivate the best sales force you can ever hope to have.
And you know as important as all of this is, there are other books that have this kind of information, But what this book has that those others do not have are things like a chapter on avoiding complacency which focuses on making sure your sales team is motivated, read passionate in both good times and in bad.
Or the chapter on aligning your sales and marketing efforts, which I have come to appreciate over my years of consulting has always been a problem ; but these writers address it straight on using great real life examples from some of the great marketing companies of the world to prove their theories.
These are just some of the things that I can say about this book, but my space is limited. Okay I know that I recommend a lot of books but this one is for everyone, actually especially those of you who don't buy or read too many books. Even though I read this one from cover , that's just me, that's what I do but for those of you who don't do that, then think of it as a plan, a blueprint for what you have to do to be successful.

This book is a very comprehensive and practical approach to managing a sales force. The authors do a fine job of articulating: Training, planning, motivation, and tracking positive results.
I really enjoyed the insight into the 5 Sales Effectiveness drivers. The concept is important for accountability and is basic, straightforward and easy to understand. This train of thought provides a good blueprint and structure for the Sales Manager who is willing to step back and reorganize. If a sales manager can accept working to change the organizational structure for the better, well, that's half the battle.
* Definer drivers - set up the organizational structure and salesperson roles.
* Sharper drivers - hiring, training, and coaching practices - affect salespeople directly.
* Enlightener, Exciter, and Controller drivers - affect the activities performed by the sales force.
I recommend this book as a good foundation for Management and Sales.

Wow! What a comprehensive well-written and well-outlined book on sales management. I usually steer clear of posting book reviews on Amazon for books on straight sales. That doesn't mean I don't read them, but I don't usually see fit to recommend many of them. Of the nearly 500 reviews I have posted on Amazon as Jeff Lippincott I have only posted two others besides this one that related to straight sales. See The Road Warrior's Guide to Sales Management - Taking the Stress out of Managing Salespeople and Perspectives on Increasing Sales. I recommend them and the instant one being reviewed.

This book is heavy and thick. It is split into three sections as follows:

>>A blueprint for sales force excellence
>>Improving the top sales effectiveness drivers
>>Addressing common & challenging sales management issues

If you are a small business founder or owner, or in charge of sales at your company, or hope to be a sales manager in the future, then do yourself a favor and consider reading this book and the other two I cite herein above. Three books on a subject can make you an expert. And these three books are all good. 5 stars!

PS. I encourage you to examine the Search Inside feature that Amazon offers for this book. There you can take a look at the Table of Contents for this wonderful book and see exactly what its contents include.

To reveal the potential of your sales force, analyze and evaluate 12 sales effectiveness drivers. Maximize the benefits of those drivers and you often can maximize sales. Sales experts Andris A. Zoltners, Prabhakant Sinha and Sally E. Lorimer explain how these drivers work. Their comprehensive book is filled with flow charts, scatter plots and other graphic presentations of data, underscoring the authors' technical rigor. The book also offers case studies that bring the authors' points down to earth. If the painstaking information is any indication, this team has thought long and hard about improving sales force effectiveness and it understands the subject exceedingly well. getAbstract believes readers can learn a great deal about building a great sales force from these astute observers.

I confess I missed this book and the others put out by ZS Associates. The website is a good resource, but they do not blog so their online profile is low to invisible. Too bad because the work they do is of the highest caliber and thoroughness when it comes to comprehensive sales management books. This one even contains a very useful chapter on sales and marketing alignment. A new VP of Sales and Marketing could do much worse than to devour this book. They have a useful model of upstream and downstream work, this whitepaper on the website gives a pretty succinct view. This is good work they do. What was missing for me was the guide of where to start and what to do in what sequence. For that bit I recommend this SalesBenchmark whitepaper . Enjoy

I have the hardback version of this book and it's great, very informative covering all the key areas of building a winning sales team. Unfortunately when Amazon turned it into and ebook for the Kindle they did a very poor job- the graphics from the book look terrible, all blurred and very hard to ready- on my PC and the Kindle.