Sales acceleration formula: using data, technology, and inbound selling to go from $0 to $100 million

TABLE OF CONTENTS 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

DESCRIPTION Use data, technology, and inbound selling to build a remarkable team and accelerate sales The Sales Acceleration Formula provides a scalable, predictable approach to growing revenue and building a winning sales team. Everyone wants to build the next $100 million business and author Mark Roberge has actually done it using a unique methodology that he shares with his readers. As an MIT alum with an engineering background, Roberge challenged the conventional methods of scaling sales utilizing the metrics-driven, process-oriented lens through which he was trained to see the world. In this book, he reveals his formulas for success. Readers will learn how to apply data, technology, and inbound selling to every aspect of accelerating sales, including hiring, training, managing, and generating demand. As SVP of Worldwide Sales and Services for software company HubSpot, Mark led hundreds of his employees to the acquisition and retention of the company's first 10,000 customers across more than 60 countries. This book outlines his approach and provides an action plan for others to replicate his success, including the following key elements: Hire the same successful salesperson every time - The Sales Hiring Formula Train every salesperson in the same manner - The Sales Training Formula Hold salespeople accountable to the same sales process - The Sales Management Formula Provide salespeople with the same quality and quantity of leads every month - The Demand Generation Formula Leverage technology to enable better buying for customers and faster selling for salespeople Business owners, sales executives, and investors are all looking to turn their brilliant ideas into the next $100 million revenue business. Often, the biggest challenge they face is the task of scaling sales. They crave a blueprint for success, but fail to find it because sales has traditionally been referred to as an art form, rather than a science. You can't major in sales in college. Many people question whether sales can even be taught. Executives and entrepreneurs are often left feeling helpless and hopeless. The Sales Acceleration Formula completely alters this paradigm. In today's digital world, in which every action is logged and masses of data sit at our fingertips, building a sales team no longer needs to be an art form. There is a process. Sales can be predictable. A formula does exist.