Comments on: Topgrading for Sales: A Review

By: Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:16:59 +0000

Ian

Just finished reading Nesh’s review and now I turn to your site and another review of the book. I also have a copy of the book and your comments about a quick and easy read are appealing… It seems the book is getting good reviews.

By: Nathan Poling

Nathan Poling — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:05:59 +0000

Ian:
Nice review. We at Sales Benchmark Index are happy you enjoyed it. (Greg Alexander is our CEO.)

Cheers,
Nathan

By: Sales Training

Sales Training — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:35:09 +0000

I thank you for the review, Ian. I have been wondering what this book is all about. Based upon your recommendation, I’m going to read it.

Skip Anderson

By: Nesh Thompson | Sales Performance

Nesh Thompson | Sales Performance — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:48:52 +0000

I’ve just finished the book and thought it a valuable read in that I have been shown an area that I perhaps took a little for granted. I mean, surely, the idea is that you hire the best people for the job…but then I didn’t realise to what extent you can refine the process…much like sales really.

With regards to your question on whether there would be enough “A” players to go around if everyone Topgraded, surely in a darwinian approach to this question, if everyone Topgraded then sales people by process of elimination would become mostly “A” people. Ah, if only that utopian dream were possible…

By: Sales Management 2.0

Sales Management 2.0 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:34:08 +0000

Ian,

Having a very serious recruiting background I am going to have to add this to my must read list. I already keep a bench of “players” ready to come on board in the event of a vacancy, but it looks like this book has a lot of great ideas for the serious recruiting professional.

Thanks for the excellent review!

-Brad

By: Karl Goldfield - Sales Training

Karl Goldfield - Sales Training — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:56:00 +0000

Ian,

I too have read this book and agree it is a good listing tool for mapping out the hiring process. The lack of deep dive is perhaps a way to get you to use their other resources and buy their training.

One final note: The book could be a bit shorter if they took the self promotion out of it. I wish they did not try to “sell” on how great the process is. The process speaks for itself.

Karl

By: Cambridge Business Coach

Cambridge Business Coach — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:09:20 +0000

Hi Ian,

I have to say, you’ve done a great review, nice job

There’s a wonderful saying, I don’t know where I heard it, that goes along the lines of “First class people recruit first class staff, second rate people recruit third-rate staff”.

The principle is that people who aren’t any good are often scared of recruiting people better than themselves. So they avoid that buy getting complete slackers and dead-heads!

I’ve seen this play out in big business, but more scarily, in a very small consultancy too. The owner/manager was scared to recruit a guy with better technical skills than he had himself. It took some effort to coach him round.

When he understood how this would just set his feet in concrete of having to fix things all the time, rather than grow his business, he woke up. His business is doing very well now, glad to say!

I saw a great article today, not sure where, that was entitled “Hire Slow, Fire Fast”. Best advice for any recruitment I’ve ever seen. Cost of a wrong hire is about 3-6 months salary plus on-costs. Take the time to get it right, if it doesn’t work out after that, get rid of them fast.
Costs too much, wastes too much time.

Cheers,

Lee