The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

by Mark Roberge
Released February 2015
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781119047070

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Book 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.

    Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Title Page
    3. Copyright
    4. Foreword
    5. Acknowledgments
    6. Introduction
    7. Part I: The Sales Hiring Formula
      1. Chapter 1: Uncovering the Characteristics of a Successful Salesperson
      2. Chapter 2: Five Traits Great Salespeople Have and How to Interview for Them
        1. Coachability
        2. Curiosity
        3. Prior Success
        4. Intelligence
        5. Work Ethic
      3. Chapter 3: Finding Top-Performing Salespeople
        1. Build a Recruiting Agency within Your Company
        2. Find Quality Passive Sales Candidates on LinkedIn
        3. Find Quality Passive Sales Candidates through Your Team: The “Forced Referral”
        4. Understand the Sales Talent Pool in Your Area
      4. Chapter 4: The Ideal First Sales Hire
    8. Part II: The Sales Training Formula
      1. Chapter 5: Setting Up a Predictable Sales Training Program
        1. Defining the Three Elements of the Sales Methodology: The Buyer Journey, Sales Process, and Qualifying Matrix
        2. Create a Training Curriculum around the Sales Methodology
        3. Adding Predictability to the Sales Training Formula
        4. Constant Iteration on the Sales Process
      2. Chapter 6: Manufacturing Helpful Salespeople Your Buyers Trust
        1. Train Your Salespeople to Experience the Day-to-Day Job of Potential Customers
        2. Enable Your Salespeople to Build Their Personal Brand with Potential Customers Using Social Media
    9. Part III: The Sales Management Formula
      1. Chapter 7: Metrics-Driven Sales Coaching
        1. Implementing a Coaching Culture throughout the Organization
        2. Creating the Coaching Plan Together with the Salesperson
        3. Examples of Metrics-Driven Skill Diagnosis and Coaching Plans
        4. “Peeling Back the Onion”
        5. Measure the Coaching Success
      2. Chapter 8: Motivation through Sales Compensation Plans and Contests
        1. Criteria to Evaluate a New Commission Plan
        2. Involve the Sales Team in Compensation Plan Design
        3. Promotion Tiers: Removing the Subjectivity from Promotions and Compensation Adjustments
        4. Using Sales Contests to Motivate the Team
        5. The Best Contest I Ever Ran
      3. Chapter 9: Developing Sales Leaders—Advantages of a “Promote from Within” Culture
        1. Prerequisites for Leadership Consideration
        2. From the Classroom to the Real World
        3. Common Potholes from New Sales Managers
    10. Part IV: The Demand Generation Formula
      1. Chapter 10: Flip the Demand Generation Formula—Get Buyers to Find You
        1. How Can Your Business Rank at the Top of Google?
        2. This Does Not Happen Overnight
        3. Create a Content Production Process
        4. Complement Content Production with Social Media Participation
        5. Long-Tail Theory
      2. Chapter 11: Converting Inbound Interest into Revenue
        1. Marketing's Role in Converting Interest into Revenue
        2. Sales' Role in Converting Interest into Revenue
      3. Chapter 12: Aligning Sales and Marketing—The SMarketing SLA
        1. The Marketing Service Level Agreement (SLA)
        2. The Sales Service Level Agreement (SLA)
    11. Part V: Technology and Experimentation
      1. Chapter 13: Technology to Sell Better, Faster
        1. Accelerate Lead Sourcing with Technology
        2. Accelerate Sales Prospecting with Technology
        3. Accelerate Lead Engagement with Technology
        4. Automated Reporting with Technology
      2. Chapter 14: Running Successful Sales Experiments
        1. Generating Ideas for Experiments
        2. Best Practices of Experiment Execution
      3. Chapter 15: HubSpot's Most Successful Sales Experiments
        1. The HubSpot Value Added Reseller (VAR) Program
        2. GPCT
      4. Chapter 16: Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here?
    12. All of the Proceeds of This Book Will Be Donated to BUILD-Boston
    13. Index
    14. End User License Agreement

    Product information

    • Title: The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million
    • Author(s): Mark Roberge
    • Release date: February 2015
    • Publisher(s): Wiley
    • ISBN: 9781119047070