Review: Sales Management (Part I) – Robert Calvin
January 8, 2011
This week at Openview we are hosting a Sales Execution Forum for our portfolio companies. To continue with the theme of that event, I thought it would be appropriate to review a related book. In the Openview “library” I found Robert J Calvin’s Sales Management, which is part of the Mcgraw-Hill Executive MBA Series.
Title: Sales Management
Author: Robert J Calvin
Edition: 2001
Presentation:
Organization – Chapters are broken down into logical sub-sections and the content flows evenly from section to section. Questions and exercises are presented at the end of each chapter. Charts, checklists and sample worksheets are provided where examples call for them.
Readability – Many technical books focus on content, causing readability to fall by the wayside. Calvin’s book is easy to read and convenient to skim for information.
Content:
Part I – Creating the Salesforce
The first section of Calvin’s book discusses building and managing an effective salesforce. In his first chapter, the author makes the point that technology, by itself, cannot be a silver bullet regardless of the times in which we live. Sales managers, according to Calvin, must perform work through other people by hiring correctly, training their hires, and recognizing when non-performers must be fired. The bulk of this section of the book focuses on “Hiring the Best” and “Training for Results”. He offers recruiting tips, best practices for training, and anecdotes gleaned from experience. Calvin stresses that, when done correctly, “sales management is the least expensive, most effective way to increase dollars”.
Applicability to expansion stage firms:
Although his book is ten years old and I don’t agree with all of his underlying assumptions regarding the sales process, Calvin makes some excellent points about sales organizations that are especially applicable to expansion stage firms. Out of these, I believe the most salient point refers to the need for salespeople to bring in more money than they cost after a certain point.
Calvin repeatedly emphasizes: when dealing with a sales team one should “pay them more than they are worth, then make them worth more than you pay them”. In my role here at Openview, it’s not uncommon for me to encounter organizations that embrace the first part of that statement but fail to realize the second. If your firm doesn’t have the capability to make a good sales person great, then you need to reconsider either your hiring process or your pay structure.