Grow Your People Grow Your Sales Book Review

📅 30th January 2022 | 2022 Sales Book Reviews

“Upset your team and you upset your sales”

The above statement is one of many which can be found throughout Leigh Ashton‘s latest book “Grow Your People Grow Your Sales”. One would think that creating an environment where sales people can achieve growth is a no-brainer but as we all know, it isn’t for a variety of reasons. Leigh outlines these in her book and doesn’t pull any punches.

Read on…..

What’s New

GYPGYS is a book about sales leadership rather than just selling. Leadership and sales management like sales itself, has been around forever and is a huge field. It really deserves its own category on this site. But instead, I will explain what I feel is ‘new’ or ‘better’ and worthy of consideration.

Leigh shares an amazing personal story in “Sales and Spirituality”. It shows why and how she has such passion for sales training and coaching. All of us are a sum of our life experiences – even the bad stuff – and it is courageous of Leigh to detail aspects of her past.

I very much like, and have already dipped in to, the sales leadership workbooks which accompany the book. Like many instructional guides and courses, one has to have the discipline, time and willingness to steadfastly work through them all in a timely manner.

The foreword by Mike Harris (formerly of FirstDirect) is one of the most generous I have read since I started my reviews and what follows is clear, concise and instructive.

What’s Old

Many of us who were on the sales-force in the nineties would have had to put up with a typical “command and control” structure. One of the pet phrases of sales management in those days was “well done of getting your job retention medal this month”. There was little nurturing just a “do it or else” attitude. That way of doing things is now toast. The author instructs the reader not to be a “telling manager”. Far better to be an attentive listener and encourage discussion between you and your sales people.

I’ve come across Leigh’s 10-80-10 ratio before. For the uninitiated, this means that 10% of your sales team are top dogs, 80% are the steady guys and girls (some call them the ‘also-rans’ and 10% are your duffers. Leigh explains how she made an error is spending too much time with the 10% who don’t make it. Far better you spend time with the 80%. Just a small percentage increase in their sales will have a large impact on the overall team profit.

What’s Better

GYPGYS is a easy-to-read book with supporting exercises. It is not an academic piece about the why’s and wherefores of sales management. Leigh’s previous publication iSell was equally straightforward. I found the most powerful message in the book was concerning rapport and the actions to be taken which include the non-negotiables, accountability for behaviours and knowledge of the KPI’s (sorry for the corporate-speak).

Chapters Four and Five are about personal beliefs, wellbeing and the creation of a Healthy Growth Mindset Culture. I read both chapters twice. I suggest you do the same. Getting people away from a Fixed Mindset to a Growth Mindset can be very challenging. Leigh’s “seven Sales Growth Mindset Leadership traits” are concerned with behaviours, accountability, collaboration, focus and much more.

‘Understanding Your People’ (Chapter Six) explains why we do the things that we do do! It reminded me of the “UP” television series which eventually morphed into “63 Up”. It showed how people developed through their lives and all started with the famous quote by Aristotle “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” I agree with Leigh when she states that psychometric testing can only tell you so much about salespeople’s traits. I guess on paper you can have the best people. But are they motivated to do the job?

What’s Worse

Early on in the book, Leigh states that managers should consider their sales people as athletes. That was a red flag for me. In my last review, Lee Salz trashes this theory. I agree with him. In my experience, even the fittest (mentally and physical) sales people come nowhere near being athletes. Can you imagine a sales force where each member’s diet, sleep patterns and down time are closely monitored? I can’t, can you?

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Overall, this book is a bit of a must for up and coming sales managers in the B2B arena.

Well done Leigh!

Tags: behaviours, sales training, work ethic