Topgrading for Sales: World-Class Methods to Interview, Hire, and Coach Top SalesRepresentatives [Hardcover]

Bradford D. Smart Ph.D. (Author), Greg Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2008

A concise extension of the business classic Topgrading, targeted to sales managers

Brad Smart?s Topgrading has sold more than 150,000 copies since 1999, making it the definitive book for executives who want to hire, coach, and retain top talent. Now Smart has teamed up with Greg Alexander, who used Topgrading to radically improve his sales force at EMC.

In Topgrading for Sales, they have boiled down the key Topgrading ideas to a pithy 112 pages while focusing on the unique needs of sales managers and sales directors.

Great sales forces don?t just depend on strategies? they depend on hiring the best possible reps. But surveys show that about half of all hires and promotions put an underqualified person in the wrong job. No wonder the average tenure for sales managers is only nineteen months.

Topgrading for Sales takes the guesswork out of hiring by teaching readers how to interview systematically for A-level talent instead of relying on hunches and prejudices. It also shows how to coach B-level reps to turn them into A-players and how to weed out C-players before they do too much damage.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Building on the success of his 1999 topgrading process to hire, coach, and keep the best people, author-psychologist-consultant Smart teams up with Alexander (of Sales Benchmark Index) to introduce a hiring method geared to sales reps. Why such a specific topic? Consider these statistics: the average tenure of a sales manager is 19 months, and 40 percent of all sales reps fail year after year after year. Thus, the reason for topgrading’s 10 meticulous steps becomes crystal clear. All of these steps are supported by forms and structure, from the scorecard to the reference-check guide. All are based on sound human- resources practices and policies, including a validation of the interview questions by a top-notch labor relations–employment law firm. Although some text seems to be deliberately designed to sell additional products to readers, Topgrading  itself presents valuable information for anyone in the business of people management. --Barbara Jacobs

About the Author

Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D., is the president of Smart & Associates, Inc., based in the Chicago area. A well-known industrial psychologist and consultant with nearly thirty-five years in practice, he has worked with dozens of major companies, including General Electric, Bank of America, and John Deere.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (June 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591842069
• ISBN-13: 978-1591842064
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #144,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't pay full price for this book., December 23, 2010

By 

Vincent Smith "vcsmith" (Maplewood, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Topgrading for Sales: World-Class Methods to Interview, Hire, and Coach Top SalesRepresentatives (Hardcover)

Following the advice of a reviewer I did not pay full price for this book, I paid $2.92 plus shipping. The book is an easy read with its 54 pages and another 50+ pages of appendixes. Topgrading is a thorough and extensive selection system for hiring top performing people, in the case of this particular book, sales representatives. The problem is that you keep waiting for some real substance beyond the proposed premise of don't hire anybody unless they are the best. The system is quite elaborate in the information you are asked to collect, but you are never given any method for evaluating or how to use this information. They just keep saying that people using their system have much fewer washouts and more high achievers. Reading it was like watching those late night 60-minute infomercials.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Expected More, June 23, 2010

By 

Buddy Lo (Houston) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Topgrading for Sales: World-Class Methods to Interview, Hire, and Coach Top SalesRepresentatives (Hardcover)

Don't pay full price for this book. It lacks real substance. It all about hiring quality people and assumes those hiring may or may not be the best judgment of character. If you are in sales, you may want to use this book to interview the organization that you may want to work for.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent interview strategies, February 17, 2010

By 

Kendra Lee "Author, Selling Against the Goal" (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Topgrading for Sales: World-Class Methods to Interview, Hire, and Coach Top Sales Representatives (Hardcover)

"Excellent interview strategies and topics. I especially like the recommendations for how to effectively check references." - Kendra Lee, author of Selling Against the Goal